/ TALE:
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 8. P. McLEAN. BOOKSELLER. 
 
 48 SO. BROAM^-i
 
 PENHALLOW TALES
 
 PENHALLOW TALES 
 
 By 
 
 Edith Robinson 
 
 BOSTON 
 COPELAND AND DAY 
 
 MDCCCXCVI
 
 COPYRIGHT 1896 BY COPELAND AND DAY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PENHALLOW I 
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 75 
 
 A RETURN TO NATURE 97 
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 107 
 
 MARM PHCEBE'S FORTUNE 131 
 
 THE SATYR'S HEAD 153 
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 165 
 
 548337 
 
 LIBRARf
 
 PENHALLOW 
 I. 
 
 " 'THHE witches are after me ! Mr. Winn, 
 _L Mr. Winn ! The witches are after 
 me ! They're tormenting me almost to 
 death ! " 
 
 I put my hands over my ears to shut out 
 the hateful utterance, and involuntarily closed 
 my eyes also, as though I could thereby dispel 
 the mental picture that the words had evoked. 
 I was in the little attic chamber at the end of 
 the poorhouse, for which room I had begged 
 in order to be as far as possible from the in 
 mates, and she was in her usual place on the 
 south steps, where the sun lay warm the 
 greater part of the day. Vital heat she could 
 not have had. 
 
 " The witches are after me ! They're tor 
 menting me almost to death ! " 
 
 The words ended with a wail such as might 
 have been uttered by a lost soul condemned 
 to wander on earth through indefinite time. 
 In the darkness that I had created I only saw 
 more vividly a skeleton form a mummy
 
 2 TALES 
 
 rather, with a skin like brown leather, drawn 
 so tightly over its hairless skull that the eyes, 
 in which lingered most of the life of the 
 creature who had once been a woman, seemed 
 to be starting from their sockets. One could 
 only guess at her height, for her form was 
 bent nearly double, except when she would 
 straighten herself in a moment of passion, 
 and then hobble after some boys who had 
 mockingly chanted, as they passed by, the 
 rhymes that her name or her habits had 
 suggested : 
 
 " Old Sally Waters, 
 Sitting in the sun ! ' ' 
 
 She was clad in the almshouse uniform, 
 consisting of a short skirt of gray linsey- 
 woolsey, and a round waist with a little cape 
 reaching to the shoulders. A sharp watch 
 had to be kept upon her to prevent her tear 
 ing off strips of this gown for the strange 
 purpose for which she coveted them. No 
 definite information in regard to the length 
 of time old Sally Waters had been at the 
 poorhouse could be obtained from the records, 
 which, particularly in the earlier days, had 
 been carelessly kept; the people in the 
 neighborhood, who had owned their farms 
 for generations, could only say that she had 
 " allers been there," and that she looked as
 
 PENHALLOW 3 
 
 she did now when boys who had become 
 grandfathers had called out to her as she sat 
 in the glare of the July sunshine : 
 
 " Old Sally Waters 
 Sitting in the sun, 
 Crying and weeping 
 For a young man ! " 
 
 On stormy days, shutting herself into her 
 bedroom, she would look over the contents 
 of a battered little blue-painted chest that 
 stood by the head of her bed, and which she 
 guarded with jealous care : her treasure 
 probably charms against the witches that 
 haunted her was in the form of hundreds 
 of knotted woollen rags that had been torn 
 from her gown, and which contained cuttings 
 of her nails. She had taken the most singu 
 lar and unfortunate fancy to me, greeting me 
 on my home-coming, a week before, with the 
 words : 
 
 " You've been long gone, Martina ! " 
 
 And then, in some unfathomable emotion, 
 she had begun crooning some gibberish to 
 herself, varied by those wild shrieks. 
 
 Had she overheard my name in some 
 chance mention by my father or mother? 
 Dolt though old Sally Waters was, there were 
 gleams of intelligence cunning rather 
 that she now and then displayed, usually in
 
 4 TALES 
 
 connection with evading the watch kept upon 
 her destructive propensity. It seemed to 
 be a mark of favor that she had shown me 
 her chest of disgusting relics, and even, 
 with gestures commanding secrecy, displayed 
 another charm that was likewise tied up in a 
 gray flannel rag and worn suspended about 
 her neck by a leather string. 
 
 Towards the other paupers she exhibited a 
 frightful temper, varied at times by a ludicrous 
 assumption of dignity and command. Her 
 meals were brought to her in a corner of the 
 dining-room apart from the rest, and in such 
 terror were the other inmates of the house 
 of the haunted atmosphere which old Sally 
 Waters seemed to have created about herself, 
 that none of them ever ventured to seat them 
 selves in the straight-backed wooden chair 
 that she called hers. 
 
 I hated the miserable creatures whose 
 lives were spent in gossiping and quarrelling, 
 whose sole ambition was to have the biggest 
 pieces of pie on the days when mother had 
 dessert for a treat. The very situation of the 
 big, square, unpainted building, just below 
 the crest of the hill, stifled me. On its other 
 side, upon the gentle slope towards the river, 
 was soon to be life such as I loved ; but only 
 cognizant were those in the almshouse of it 
 all by the whistle and roar of the passing
 
 PENHALLOW 5 
 
 trains, many of which stopped at Penhallow 
 station. This year the house from which the 
 station was named Penhallow Place was 
 to be reopened, after having stood vacant for 
 forty years, transformed into a summer hotel 
 by the aid of an army of carpenters and 
 upholsterers. 
 
 Its many advantages were eloquently set 
 forth in the circular : 
 
 " It stands upon high ground on the banks 
 of the most beautiful part of the Merrimac, 
 with fishing, boating, and bathing at the com 
 mand of the guests. At the foot of the 
 extensive lawn, in front of the house, shaded 
 by magnificent elms of centuries' growth, is 
 the highroad, leading, in either direction, to 
 some of the most charming nooks and corners 
 of New Hampshire. But what will, perhaps, 
 as much as anything, recommend it to lovers 
 of natural scenery, is its exceptional facilities 
 for communication with Boston, it being but 
 a little over an hour's ride thence, while the 
 station is almost opposite the house." 
 
 Notwithstanding the beauty of the sur 
 rounding country, it seemed hitherto to have 
 escaped the notice of the crowd of summer 
 invaders. So the new hotel created a good 
 deal of talk among the people about, and 
 several girls whom I knew had taken places 
 there as help. Mrs. Wason had offered me
 
 6 TALES 
 
 a situation, and I was glad of any oppor 
 tunity to escape from the poorhouse. I was 
 now taking the last stitches in the big white 
 aprons that we were to wear, for Mrs. Wason 
 wanted us to look tidy and nice before the 
 Boston folks. 
 
 Two years before my home had been ten 
 miles farther back in the country, in a little 
 house surrounded by apple and pear trees 
 that father had raised from the seed. In May 
 it was like living in the midst of a bouquet. 
 But the land was rocky and poor ; father was 
 getting too old to do the work alone, and it 
 cost considerable to hire help ; so when he 
 had a chance to take charge of the poor- 
 house he and mother decided to make the 
 change. I was away at school, and only 
 sixteen. I spent the whole day crying over 
 the sorry news. The idea of going home to 
 the county almshouse was insupportable ; so 
 when vacation came I taught district school 
 till the academy opened in the autumn. I 
 intended to teach again the following sum 
 mer, but a girl from Laconia got the place I 
 wanted, so there seemed nothing for me to do 
 but to come home and help mother with the 
 housework and the sewing for the paupers. 
 
 It was even worse than I had anticipated, 
 for I had not reckoned upon old Sally Waters 
 as a factor in the almshouse life. But there
 
 PENHALLOW 7 
 
 were other reasons besides release from its 
 hateful atmosphere that made me jump up 
 and down with joy when father gave me Mrs. 
 Wason's message ; for to me Penhallow Place 
 was enchanted ground. 
 
 II. 
 
 EIGHTY years before there had been no 
 railroad holding on its string two or three 
 bustling manufacturing towns ; no highroad 
 led past the lawn, and the thriving village of 
 to-day was represented by a blacksmith's 
 shop two miles distant. The almshouse did 
 not then lurk upon the hill behind an un 
 canny reverse side to the picture of light and 
 love and laughter at Penhallow Place. There 
 was a farmhouse or two in the country 
 around, but for the most part the land for 
 miles about belonged to the Penhallows. 
 
 The great white house loomed up, with its 
 wings and broad verandas, the whole fa9ade 
 unbroken save by the portico, to which the 
 driveway led, after sweeping around the lawn 
 in front, which in those days was bordered 
 by a double row of magnificent elms. That 
 lovely unbroken stretch of greensward had 
 been the pride of Madam Penhallow's heart 
 Now the lawn, despite the grandiloquent
 
 8 TALES 
 
 description of the circular, was not a quarter 
 of its former extent, and the trees stood 
 isolated on a dusty strip of land, known as 
 " the Common," between the road and the 
 railroad track. In the old days the driveway 
 had wound a mile along the river's bank be 
 fore it emerged from the private grounds, 
 where now the village with its houses huddled 
 thick together and an ill-smelling tannery had 
 taken the place of field and meadow and 
 woodland. 
 
 I had never wearied of listening to descrip 
 tions of the life in the great house eighty 
 years before ; how the rooms had been fur 
 nished, what great parties had been given, 
 and how the children had looked and dressed, 
 and what games they had played. They were 
 always children to me, despite the fact that 
 they had been grandfathers long before I was 
 born. But best of all did I like to hear, and 
 my grandmother to relate, how Madam Pen- 
 hallow had looked ; her picture was engraved 
 upon my imagination from my very baby 
 hood. It was her personality that exerted 
 over me a charm that may have had in it 
 something physical, for love of Madam Pen- 
 hallow had been bone of her bone and flesh 
 of her flesh to the girl my great-grand 
 mother to whom she had been a kind 
 though imperious mistress.
 
 PENHALLOW 9 
 
 The story of that other life was running in 
 my head now as I sat in my little room, 
 while the voice from without now and again 
 broke the thread of the retrospect: 
 
 " The witches are after me ! They're tor 
 menting me almost to de-a-th ! " 
 
 III. 
 
 SARAH PENHALLOW was an only child; 
 her father, Colonel Penhallow, his name 
 figures prominently in Revolutionary times, 
 worshipped her ; so did everybody, for that 
 matter, from her lovers to the hired help. 
 She was the last of the name, and her father 
 was anxious to see her married ; he was a 
 proud man, and it would have killed him to 
 picture the big colonial mansion falling into 
 a stranger's hands. His daughter had the 
 family pride ; some said the family temper, 
 too. But, if the latter charge were true, it 
 only served in those early days to make her 
 the more high-spirited and lovable ; for, if 
 she were quick, she was also generous and 
 forgiving, and that kind wins more hearts 
 than do the cold-blooded, even-tempered 
 folks. 
 
 As a child I was inclined to be fanciful and 
 dreamy, and this tendency was increased by
 
 io TALES 
 
 the solitary life I led. All my starved im 
 agination centred about one personality 
 that of Sarah Penhallow. Not even the miser 
 able end of a life that had begun in unclouded 
 sunshine could shake my allegiance to her ; 
 about her was the whole atmosphere, so 
 familiar to other children, wherein fairy god 
 mothers, the " three wishes " of elfin munifi 
 cence, flying horses, and glass mountains 
 play their part. She was the beautiful prin 
 cess for whom many a brave young prince 
 would gladly have laid down his life. What 
 ever was good and true and lovely, whatever 
 gave heart to the struggle to lift myself into 
 a better and brighter world than the one in 
 which the sordid struggle for existence held 
 sole sway, was inspired by the ever-present 
 image in my mind of that one woman. 
 
 There were gay goings on at the Place 
 when on her twentieth birthday she was mar 
 ried. William MacNeil was poor, but as well 
 born as herself; after his marriage he called 
 himself MacNeil Penhallow. Soon there were 
 two children, Ralph there had been a 
 Ralph Penhallow time out of mind in the 
 family and George. Then the old colonel 
 died in a fit of apoplexy brought on by rage 
 because his horse had not been properly 
 groomed, and for a while it was quiet at the 
 Place.
 
 PENHALLOW 1 1 
 
 But before long the house was opened 
 again, and the grand company came as before, 
 in their own coaches, with outriders, from as 
 far off as Portsmouth and Boston. The Pen- 
 hallows were in the habit of going to the 
 latter town for a few weeks in the winter and 
 again for a few weeks when the General Court 
 was sitting ; but their hearts were always at 
 Penhallow Place. The anniversary of their 
 wedding day came in July, and the occasion 
 was always celebrated by a grand ball. Come 
 what might, they were always at Penhallow 
 Place on that day. 
 
 They had two more children now both 
 boys. It was shortly after the birth of the 
 last one that a change began to be observed 
 in Madam Penhallow; some explained it by 
 saying that she was growing like her father. 
 She scolded the servants, and was often need 
 lessly severe with the children ; and then, to 
 atone, would be indulgent beyond measure 
 to both. She took offence at mere words 
 with her friends, parted from several on trivial 
 pretence, and seemed, by a certain aggressive 
 bearing, to be constantly on the lookout for 
 some ground of quarrel with all. 
 
 Her husband grew anxious about her 
 health. Sometimes she would lie awake for 
 several consecutive nights, and then would 
 come a morning when her sleep would be
 
 12 TALES 
 
 so heavy that it was difficult to arouse her. 
 She was restless, too, often spending the entire 
 day in wandering from one room to another ; 
 again she would seem possessed by a very 
 demon of work, and the embroidery needle 
 would fly in her hands or the intricate lace 
 grow beneath her rapid fingers ; at other 
 times she would sit for hours with her hands 
 lying idle in her lap and a strange, fixed look 
 in her eyes. There were those who shook 
 their heads, but none liked to voice what 
 was the thought of many. It was worse than 
 either ill-temper or insanity. 
 
 Her husband repeatedly begged her to let 
 him summon a doctor; she flew into a pas 
 sion at the mere suggestion. It was not the 
 first time that she had lost her temper with 
 him, but never so violently as on that morn 
 ing. The next moment she had her arm 
 around his neck, and was upbraiding herself 
 for her angry words. 
 
 " I will do anything you wish, love," she 
 cried, " only I will not see a doctor." 
 
 " Then we will try a change," he urged. 
 " Let us go to Washington. No wonder you 
 have become depressed and nervous, living in 
 this great house alone in the woods." 
 
 She put her hand over his mouth in her 
 loving, imperious fashion. 
 
 " Do not say another word against Penhal-
 
 PENH ALLOW 13 
 
 low Place ! " she cried. " I could not live 
 long away from it. Blind and crippled and 
 idiotic, I should still crawl back, through 
 sheer instinct, to die in its beloved shadow. 
 But since you wish it, Mac, we will go to 
 Washington for a little while." 
 
 It was then early in the fall, and, despite 
 her words, it was not until late in the spring 
 that they returned. Through the following 
 summer the house was filled with a succes 
 sion of guests ; there was ball after ball ; 
 there were picnics, riding and boating parties 
 without number; and the feverish activity of 
 the previous year seemed now to find its vent 
 in social excitement. 
 
 Another child was born; he was named 
 for his father, and grew up his living image, 
 with a clear, pale complexion, blue eyes, and 
 fair hair. He was his mother's darling, and 
 in his presence her fits of passion were rare, 
 for she could not bear to see the child shrink 
 from her and raise his wondering eyes to her 
 face. He did not cry, as other children 
 might have done, but his grieved, shocked 
 look speedily brought her to her senses, and 
 a terrible fit of weeping would follow. 
 
 To a considerable degree he had his 
 father's disposition, too, gentle, yielding, 
 singularly sweet and sensitive. He gave up 
 his toys to his brothers without a word ; but
 
 14 TALES 
 
 if one of them, in sport, tormented his pet 
 kitten, the little fellow's eyes would flash, and 
 his fist clench in Bonny's defence. No one 
 with Penhallow blood in his veins could be a 
 coward, but it sometimes seemed as though 
 Mac were unfitted to fight his way through 
 the world ; however, it is often the gentlest 
 nature that is capable of the stoutest resist 
 ance. The others were strong, sturdy boys, 
 with whom it was take and fight, quarrel and 
 make up, in hearty, boyish fashion ; their 
 differences left no rancor behind, for loyalty 
 to one another was as prominent a character 
 istic of the Penhallows now as it had been 
 long ago to Church and State, when to reward 
 his " right faithful and loving subject, Ralph 
 Penhallow," King Charles had granted to him 
 certain lands in " ye New Plantation " that the 
 family had held ever after. 
 
 Dating back to that visit to Washington, 
 the children had become afraid of their 
 mother ; she was " so queer," the elder ones 
 said among themselves. Only one person 
 held the key of the mystery ; and that person 
 was her maid. 
 
 It was a sad time for poor Mr. Penhallow, 
 although sadder days were yet to come. Mrs. 
 Penhallow's temper was now common talk. 
 Guests still came to the house, but the old- 
 time feeling of open-handed hospitality was
 
 PENH ALLOW 15 
 
 gone. It was like picnicking on top of a 
 volcano. 
 
 Mr. Penhallow had always longed for a 
 daughter ; but little Mac was now ten years 
 old, and it was unlikely that other children 
 would be born to them. But when he heard, 
 from his wife's own lips, that before long he 
 would be a father again, he rejoiced as he had 
 never done before in their married life, for from 
 the first he made up his mind that the new 
 comer was to be a girl. He even decided 
 upon her name. She should be called Eliza 
 beth, after his mother. 
 
 Of late years the master of the house had 
 shut himself up in his library. Naturally a 
 quiet man, he had become a silent, even a 
 moody, one. The children's laughter and 
 frolic disturbed him, so they kept away from 
 him, as well as from their mother. He had 
 his own apartments, Madam Penhallow had 
 hers ; they met only at luncheon and dinner. 
 Madam Penhallow's breakfast was taken to 
 her own room. Her maid had orders never 
 to disturb her morning nap, and all others 
 were strictly forbidden to enter the apart 
 ment at any time. 
 
 Once Mr. Penhallow spoke to his wife of 
 their new hope ; perhaps he would fain have 
 awakened some of the old feeling that had 
 been between them. She checked him with a
 
 1 6 TALES 
 
 jeer at the unwonted display of affection, and, 
 silenced, he returned to his library and his 
 books ; she to her own chamber and her 
 maid. 
 
 Much of the time there was spent in wild, 
 long fits of weeping, that became more and 
 more frequent as the time for her confinement 
 drew near. If, in courteous, but never again 
 loving, inquiry for her health her husband 
 came to the door, he was met by the maid and 
 the words : 
 
 " Madam Penhallow is lying down and 
 must not be disturbed." 
 
 The child was born, a miserable, puny 
 little creature, and when the mother looked 
 at it she cried: 
 
 " Take it away ! It is the visible sign and 
 token of my sin ! " 
 
 Those around thought that she spoke in 
 the ravings of delirium. But her maid under 
 stood. 
 
 The father took the child his Elizabeth 
 to his heart of hearts. Her nature was in 
 as utter a contrast to her brothers' as was her 
 physical being. They were endowed with 
 keen, bold intellects that united the strong 
 practical grasp of the Penhallows with the 
 refined, scholarly tastes of the MacNeils. 
 Little Elizabeth was hardly more robust in 
 mind than in body. It took her days and
 
 PENH ALLOW 17 
 
 weeks to master that which her brothers had 
 acquired in one lesson. There was a hesi 
 tancy in her speech, and even the little that 
 she said seemed to be an effort for her to con 
 ceive or to force herself to utter. It was to 
 everybody's surprise and in refutation of the 
 nurse's prediction that she had survived baby 
 hood. Into her mother's presence the child 
 was forbidden to come. 
 
 Yet with every year she grew more like 
 her mother. But it was Madam Penhallow 
 with the life gone ; they were to each other 
 like a crimson rose, fresh plucked on a June 
 morning, and the same flower behind the 
 glass of an embalmed funeral wreath. 
 
 She grew up at her father's side in the 
 library. They took their meals there alone 
 together ; unlike the boys, she never disturbed 
 him with an overflow of youthful spirits. She 
 sat opposite to him in the big carved chair, 
 speaking only in reply to some question ; her 
 big, dark eyes, that seemed to have absorbed 
 all the life of the tiny little creature, fixed 
 upon his face. Sometimes they would be 
 seen crossing the lawn together. Elizabeth's 
 solemn little steps keeping pace with those 
 of her companion, her hand clasped in his. 
 She never broke away, lured by the childish 
 ambition of catching the big yellow butterfly 
 that had just fluttered across their path, or
 
 1 8 TALES 
 
 loosened her hold that she might fill her 
 hands to overflowing with the daisies and 
 buttercups that starred their way. It was an 
 unhealthy life for any child ; for one with 
 Elizabeth's inheritance of morbid tendencies 
 it proved a fatal one. 
 
 There was an unlooked-for result that 
 sprang from the father's exclusive devotion 
 to his daughter. Madam Penhallow grew 
 madly jealous; her love had become per 
 verted to the venomous passion that claims 
 all and would crush the very butterfly that 
 distracts a glance of the beloved one. The 
 servants whispered among themselves that it 
 would not be safe to leave Miss Elizabeth to 
 the mercies of her mother. If, by a seldom 
 chance, the two met, Madam Penhallow cast 
 such a look upon the quivering child as 
 made Elizabeth seek the library and sob out 
 her terror on her father's breast. 
 
 Three different lives were thus led beneath 
 the roof of Penhallow Place in the library, 
 in Madam Penhallow's rooms, and in the 
 south wing, devoted to the boys, in which 
 was the only sunshine that had once flooded 
 the whole great mansion. Madam Penhallow 
 rarely left her own darkened apartments now, 
 except when she set out in her coach to re 
 turn a few visits, or when, at stated intervals, 
 she threw open the doors for a grand ball ;
 
 PENH ALLOW 19 
 
 for the custom was still kept up, mockery 
 though it was, of celebrating the anniversary 
 of their wedding-day. 
 
 There were only three boys at home now. 
 Ralph had wished to go to college, and his 
 mother had opposed the desire. One day he 
 briefly bade good-by to them all, and left 
 home on foot and alone, with no money in 
 his pocket but that which he and his brothers 
 had saved from their allowances. Arriving 
 in Boston, his handsome face and pleasant 
 ways aided him to find work without delay ; 
 his position was only that of errand boy, but 
 he was well content therewith, for he did not 
 mean to remain long a hewer of wood and 
 drawer of water. Mr. Penhallow had attempted 
 no remonstrance when his son told him his 
 intention of breaking away from the home life. 
 " Peace at any cost " had become the motto 
 of the weary, disheartened man. Besides, he 
 had Elizabeth ; love for her had absorbed all 
 his energy and intellect and paternal pride. 
 
 The following year George followed his 
 brother's example, only he did not go through 
 the empty formality of bidding his father 
 good-by. Tom, shortly after, left the home- 
 roof in like fashion ; not, like his brothers, to 
 seek his fortune in Boston, but to follow it at 
 sea. Joe and Mac remained at home some 
 time longer, spending the days in shooting,
 
 20 TALES 
 
 boating, riding, and, whenever they had 
 money, in having " some fun " at Portsmouth. 
 The two lads were growing up without re 
 straint of any kind. There had been a suc 
 cession of tutors at the house, but none ever 
 remained long. 
 
 It was Ralph who came forward at last with 
 the much-needed authority over the two 
 younger lads. He had recently married ; 
 George was betrothed. Of Tom naught had 
 been heard since he sailed in the " Bona- 
 venture." There arose trouble out of the 
 " fun " at Portsmouth. Accounts of a broken 
 window, the pilfering of a shop, a scrimmage, 
 and a double arrest found their way to the 
 Boston newspapers. The two elder brothers 
 went at once to Portsmouth, paid fines and 
 costs and damages, scolded the culprits 
 roundly, and insisted that both should come 
 to Boston and henceforth consider themselves 
 in their eldest brother's guardianship ; to 
 which mandate the two boys, somewhat 
 alarmed at the results of their folly, at once 
 yielded. 
 
 Joe was taken into the business, now known 
 as " Penhallow Brothers," with the promise 
 that good behavior should win for him a place 
 in the firm. Partly by reason of the tight 
 rein held over him, partly because he was 
 ambitious, but most of all because his natural
 
 PEN HALLOW 21 
 
 character was honest and straightforward, he 
 devoted himself to his occupation, and soon 
 proved that his crop of wild oats was sown. 
 
 But " Little Mac," as his brothers still called 
 him, wanted to go to college ; and Ralph was 
 well pleased at the desire. So to school he 
 sent him, where the bright, eager boy soon 
 made up the years that had been lost at home. 
 By the time he was graduated from the law 
 school the firm of Penhallow Brothers, of 
 which Joe was now a member, had acquired 
 a world-wide fame. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THERE had been a terrible fit of rage when 
 Madam Penhallow received the letter from 
 Mac telling her that he, too, had left home. 
 She never afterward spoke of her sons, and 
 forbade their names to be mentioned in her 
 presence ; she displayed no emotion when the 
 tardy news reached New Hampshire that the 
 "Bonaventure " had been lost at sea, with all on 
 board. She had apparently become without 
 human instinct, save only her passion for her 
 husband, stifled though it was by another 
 a master passion. 
 
 Elizabeth was nearly seventeen when the 
 first long act of the tragedy ended. She fell 
 in love with the only son of a once cherished
 
 22 TALES 
 
 friend. The prospective match was in every 
 way a desirable one. Hard though it would 
 be to lose his darling, Mr. Penhallow longed 
 to see her in a happy home of her own, for he 
 shuddered atthe thought of leaving her, in the 
 event of his own death, to the mercies of the 
 woman whom he called wife, but whom Eliz 
 abeth had never called mother. So he sanc 
 tioned not only the speedy engagement, but 
 urged an early marriage. The girl was as 
 happy in her new-found bliss as it was pos 
 sible for one of her nature to be ; and the 
 reflection of her joy found its way to her 
 father, creating yet another and closer bond 
 between them. 
 
 Then it was that Madam Penhallow, who 
 had hitherto paid no attention to her daugh 
 ter's preference, suddenly awoke to what was 
 going on, and, without even a pretext, forbade 
 the engagement, and declared the doors of 
 Penhallow Place to be shut against the young 
 lover. There was a dreadful scene following 
 this mandate, when Elizabeth fainted she 
 was wont to faint at the least excitement 
 and the young man uttered reproaches, hot 
 and long, to Madam Penhallow. 
 
 " Wait a little while," said the father, ready 
 to sacrifice even his daughter to his haunting 
 dread of disturbance. " By and by she may 
 yield."
 
 PENHALLOW 23 
 
 Elizabeth, always ready to submit to his 
 lightest word, did wait, but only for a little 
 while. There were two meetings with her 
 lover, at twilight, on the bank of the river; 
 the second time was the last. The next day 
 the woods were searched for her far and 
 near, her lover leading the quest, but in vain. 
 Then the father directed that the river should 
 be dragged, and there, at last, Elizabeth's 
 body was found, concealed beneath the shelv 
 ing bank, in one of the places frequent on the 
 Merrimac, near the very spot where she had 
 bade her lover farewell. 
 
 They called it a misstep. Such a weak, frail 
 creature as Elizabeth would not have had the 
 courage to take her own life. Could the 
 mother's will have usurped the place of the 
 daughter's feeble powers, and relentlessly 
 forced her to be her own destroyer ? She 
 had clung to her lover at their parting, sob 
 bing pitifully : 
 
 " Don't leave me ! She has always tried 
 to make me do it. She will make me do it 
 to-night ! " 
 
 He had thought her hysterical. 
 
 The father uttered no reproach to his wife, 
 but it was sad to see his tall, stooping figure, 
 with its prematurely gray hair, drop a bunch 
 of white roses into the open grave, and turn 
 ing, with one heart-broken sob, give his arm,
 
 24 TALES 
 
 with his never-failing gentle courtesy, to the 
 stately figure by his side. 
 
 But a week later there was upbraiding from 
 him, for the first time in all their married life. 
 No one dreamed that Madam Penhallow 
 would give the usual ball that July, but the 
 customary invitations were sent out imme 
 diately after Elizabeth's funeral. It was not 
 till the very day before the festivity that the 
 sound of preparations awakened the hermit 
 in the library. 
 
 He sought his wife's apartments and im 
 plored her to give up the project. The ball 
 was a sacrilege. It was cruel to him, in his 
 loneliness and misery, with the only being on 
 earth whom he loved torn from him, thus to 
 make sport of death. 
 
 Jealousy of the living Elizabeth was as 
 nothing compared to that which flamed up, 
 at these words, against the dead girl. At 
 last even Mr. Penhallow was aroused to the 
 anger of the patient man. 
 
 " If you are determined to disgrace your 
 name and your womanhood, I will not be 
 here to witness the shame," he cried. 
 " Elizabeth herself might well arise from her 
 grave, in the dripping white garments in 
 which she was driven to her death, and con 
 front you with the reproaches that my darling 
 would not utter in her lifetime. It is fitting
 
 PENH ALLOW 25 
 
 that you should rejoice over the consumma 
 tion of your wishes." His hand was on the 
 latch as he spoke. " Good-by," he said. 
 
 She laughed scornfully. 
 
 " Good morning, if you like," she replied. 
 " You dare not leave me, as the others, one 
 by one, have done. You are not Penhallow 
 ' by the grace of God/ but only by the grace 
 of man." 
 
 The taunt struck home. Perhaps at that 
 moment he realized how much there was 
 wherein he too had failed. 
 
 " I will be Penhallow no longer," he said. 
 " It was the mistake of my life that I ever 
 took the woman who bore the name. God 
 knows I have expiated the error." 
 
 " I will keep the first dance for you, as 
 usual," she called out mockingly after 
 him. 
 
 " I will be back to open the ball with you 
 upon your hundredth birthday, and not be 
 fore," he made answer angrily, and raised 
 his right hand, as though in oath. 
 
 The preparations for the festivity went on. 
 Madam Penhallow took a last long look at 
 herself as she stood before the cheval-glass, 
 arrayed in her wedding-gown, that she always 
 wore upon these occasions, and, passing down 
 the broad staircase and through the hall, took 
 her station at the head of the ball-room. It
 
 26 TALES 
 
 occupied the entire ground floor of the north 
 wing. She was mindful of all her duties as 
 hostess, but there was more than one guest 
 who noticed how often her eyes wandered 
 to the door as she talked of books, of poli 
 tics, and of well-known people in Boston and 
 Washington. 
 
 But there were two subjects upon which 
 none were bold enough to touch. They were 
 the dead daughter and the absent husband ; 
 and there was a chill upon all present, for it 
 was indeed as though they were " dancing 
 upon a grave." Midnight came, and Madam 
 Penhallow led the company to the supper- 
 room ; in the early dawn of the next morning, 
 when the last guests were driving away, she 
 stood in the portico, the morning breeze not 
 daring to move a fold of her heavy gown or 
 to touch into the faintest ripple the fall of 
 its lace. 
 
 That was the last picture the world had of 
 Madam Penhallow of Penhallow Place. 
 
 She sold her horses ; the carriages were 
 stored in the carriage-house ; the furniture 
 was covered with linen, and the pictures and 
 mirrors swathed in netting. The servants 
 wondered among themselves as they did her 
 bidding. Some said that she was going 
 abroad ; others, to Boston to live with her 
 sons ; yet others averred that she intended to
 
 PENH ALLOW 27 
 
 leave her home to join her husband, who had 
 sworn never to return there. At last, with 
 her own hands she closed the blinds and drew 
 the curtains all over the house, locked every 
 door and window, paid the servants their 
 wages, and dismissed them one and all. 
 
 Her sons, when the news reached them of 
 their father's departure, made every effort to 
 find him, but in vain. They thought he might 
 have entered the army, the war of 1812 was 
 then going on, but no information regarding 
 MacNeil Penhallow was to be found. Only, 
 strangely, none seemed to have thought of 
 searching the records for William MacNeil. 
 
 Madam Penhallow remained alone at Pen- 
 hallow Place. Not even her maid was allowed 
 to stay with her, hard as the girl pleaded not 
 to be sent away with the others. The door of 
 the grand entrance was locked, never again to 
 be opened during Madam Penhallow's solitary 
 life in the mansion. 
 
 There she lived for ten long years, and no 
 man, woman, or child ever looked upon her 
 face again. The storekeeper there had 
 sprung up by this time a few scattered houses 
 which they called a village came once a 
 week to get a basket holding a scrap of paper 
 on which a few orders were written, that 
 was placed by a side entrance, which he would 
 replace with a basket containing the groceries
 
 28 TALES 
 
 and eggs that had been ordered the previous 
 week. 
 
 Only one person ever entered the house, 
 by the side entrance, and that was her law 
 yer. She received him in the drawing-room, 
 where, by the light of a solitary candle, he did 
 the necessary writing, leaving any papers that 
 required signature. She meanwhile sat out 
 side the faint circle of light, and her words 
 came as from an invisible presence. Man of 
 the world though he was, the lawyer shud 
 dered at those strange interviews. Was his 
 client alive? He chid himself, on his home 
 ward journey, for his uncanny fancies. 
 
 No longer with any one at hand upon whom 
 to vent her rage, it seemed to have turned 
 itself upon the whole outside world. In the 
 darkness the venom increased, as is the way 
 with all noisome things. Her contentions, her 
 lawsuits, were never ceasing. 
 
 As the village grew, strange stories were rife 
 about fierce Madam Penhallow. She was the 
 bugaboo of all the children for miles around. 
 " Ma'am Penholler '11 git yer ! " was the threat 
 of impatient mothers. Even grown men gave 
 the mansion a wide berth at nightfall. It was 
 rumored that at midnight her figure had been 
 seen among the graves in the family burying- 
 ground, adjoining which the poorhouse was 
 afterward built.
 
 PENHALLOW 29 
 
 Seven miles away a community of mills had 
 sprung up, and there were contests about 
 water power, and a lawsuit because the Mer- 
 rimac, as it flowed by her grounds, had be 
 come befouled with the factory refuse. But 
 the town grew, and the factories increased in 
 number and extent, and the mill-owners built 
 houses on the outskirts of what was now a 
 thriving city, and there followed other con 
 tests about rights of way, a railroad here, and 
 a boundary there. Sometimes there were 
 three or four lawsuits of " Penhallow versus 
 
 " going on at once. They all ended in 
 
 one way a " verdict with costs against 
 Penhallow." At last even the house and 
 grounds were mortgaged to sustain her in her 
 resolution that the highroad should not be 
 cut through the lawn. But that contest, the 
 longest and bitterest of all, likewise came 
 to an end, and with it came the knowledge 
 that there was not enough money left even 
 to pay the interest on the mortgage on the 
 mansion. 
 
 My great-grandmother had married imme 
 diately after leaving Madam Penhallow's ser 
 vice, and had since lived on the secluded little 
 farm. It was not until weeks after the end 
 was reached that she heard how the mortgage 
 on the Place had been foreclosed, and that 
 there had been an auction of carriages and
 
 30 TALES 
 
 household effects, and even of Madam Pen- 
 hallow's personal wardrobe. For the first 
 time for many years the grand entrance was 
 opened, light was let into the house, and 
 human footsteps and living voices sounded in 
 the rooms. 
 
 Madam Penhallow sat alone in her own 
 chamber while the auction was held in the 
 ball-room beneath ; she could hear the auc 
 tioneer's voice offering for sale her heirlooms, 
 with the jests which, it was supposed, made 
 the sales livelier. A wealthy mill-owner 
 his father had been a stable-boy in Colonel 
 Penhallow's time bought the mansion, and 
 the valuables were scattered far and wide. 
 
 Those closing scenes were forty years ago, 
 and since then Penhallow Place had never 
 been occupied save for two brief periods. The 
 first was by the mill-owner, who soon left 
 the house. People shook their heads at the 
 alleged reason that it was damp. Later it 
 was used as a boarding-house for the laborers 
 when the railroad was built. No one knew 
 what became of Madam Penhallow. Her 
 sons, through their lawyer, who attended the 
 sale, offered her a handsome annuity. She 
 tore the letter to pieces and sent back the 
 fragments for answer. Whither she went, 
 when and how she died, none ever knew. It 
 was a strange story, whose inner meaning my
 
 PENH ALLOW 31 
 
 grandmother told me alone, as she lay upon 
 her death-bed. 
 
 The evil had begun in Madam Penhallow's 
 taking opium for sleepless nights, after her 
 first children were born. The small amount 
 with which she had begun soon losing its 
 effect, the quantity was gradually but steadily 
 increased. There were terrible struggles to 
 free herself from its chains when she first 
 began to realize what a hold the habit was 
 getting upon her. But the craving was irre 
 sistible, and the yielding to its demands came 
 after ever weakening efforts to assert her will. 
 More than once she was on the point of con 
 fessing all to her husband and begging him to 
 put her under restraint. Had his man's will 
 been equal to her woman's strength of pur 
 pose, all might yet have gone well with her, 
 fighting as she was for her husband, her chil 
 dren, and her home. 
 
 But already the weakness of his nature had 
 been revealed to her, and she turned aside 
 from the support of a broken reed. Besides, 
 how could she acknowledge that she, with the 
 will upon whose strength she had openly 
 prided herself, was not strong enough to con 
 trol an appetite ! 
 
 The passion grew stronger and the struggle 
 weaker. Days and nights were passed in stu 
 por, the faithful maid on guard in the dressing-
 
 32 TALES 
 
 room. In those days the opium habit was 
 almost unknown, and Madam Penhallow had 
 unusual opportunities for obtaining the drug, 
 while it was not suspected that she was a 
 victim to the fatal craving. 
 
 So she lived and passed away, and all the 
 world held her memory in opprobrium. All 
 but one her maid's great-granddaughter. 
 At odds with her very nature, had she indeed 
 any chance in the struggle, from the begin 
 ning to the bitter end? 
 
 To-morrow Penhallow Place would be filled 
 with people again. The curtain had gone 
 down on the tragedy, and the bell had rung 
 for it to go up on the farce. 
 
 V. 
 
 " THIS is your table," said Mrs. Wason, as 
 I followed her brisk steps down the long din 
 ing-room. She was a woman with " faculty " 
 written all over her ; in her beady, snapping 
 black eyes, in her scanty hair brushed smoothly 
 back from a shining forehead to be twisted 
 into a hard little knob behind, and in her bony 
 hands with their fingers worn to glassy smooth 
 ness away from the red knuckles. If any one 
 could make keeping boarders pay, it was Mrs. 
 Wason. " My best folks sit here," she added,
 
 PENHALLOW 33 
 
 " an' I calkerlate as how you could do the 
 waitin' smart as any on 'em ; an' you look 
 kind o' tasty an' spruced up in that apron." 
 
 She went on assigning their places to the 
 other girls, while I stood by my table, waiting 
 for the folks to come in to supper. The gong 
 had sounded, and there were one or two guests 
 standing by the door. The hired help had 
 been busy since four o'clock that morning, 
 making beds, filling pitchers, and getting 
 things in order generally. Some of us had 
 placed flowers in the various rooms, to try to 
 have the house look cheerful and homelike ; 
 for in spite of the fresh paint and the new 
 furniture there was a kind of chill in the air 
 that made us look over our shoulders in the 
 passages and hurry on the stairs. It would 
 have been as much as our places were worth 
 to mention this fear to Mrs. Wason, for she 
 knew it did not take much to give a house a 
 bad name, and we had all been charged not 
 to breathe a word of the old stories to the 
 Boston folks. 
 
 The rooms that were formerly Madam Pen- 
 hallow's own were in my charge, and I had 
 put roses in every available nook ; on the 
 dressing-table was & glass pitcher, crowded 
 with our own " thousand-leaved " variety, 
 which blossomed so luxuriantly in our garden 
 on the hillside farm. Early the day before I
 
 34 TALES 
 
 had gone home with a boy who drove through 
 the neighborhood to collect milk from the 
 farmers. We used to play together at the 
 district school, but he had grown bashful 
 since those days, and I don't believe spoke a 
 word, except in answer to a question, during 
 all the drive over. 
 
 You could not find such roses as ours in all 
 the country round. My great-grandmother 
 had brought a slip of the bush with her when 
 she left Penhallow Place. The garden back 
 of the mansion had long ago run to decay, 
 and not a vestige of what had been Madam 
 Penhallow's favorite flower was to be found 
 there now; but the tiny slip had thriven in 
 our garden, and every year covered the back 
 of our cottage with its June glories. It 
 seemed as though it were for Madam Pen- 
 hallow herself that I was bringing back the 
 flowers. It was strange how the conception 
 of her as of a living personality clung to me. 
 But then mother had often chidden me for 
 being fanciful. 
 
 A stream of people had entered the dining- 
 room, the ladies arrayed in bright summer 
 gowns, the gentlemen walking with alert steps 
 and with heads erect. None of the men to 
 whom I was accustomed carried themselves 
 in such a way. Mrs. Wason was showing 
 them to their places. The words that awoke
 
 PENH ALLOW 35 
 
 me from my dream were uttered in her thin, 
 high-pitched voice. 
 
 " Will you sit here? Martiny will wait on 
 you. This is Martiny." 
 
 I took a step forward to draw back the 
 chairs, and then stood petrified, staring at 
 the new-comers, like the awkward country girl 
 they must have thought me. 
 
 When and where and how had I seen that 
 woman before seen her with more than a 
 mere passing glance; ay, and held converse 
 with her, not once or twice, but many times? 
 
 She was tall above the common height 
 and broad-shouldered, yet so well propor 
 tioned that she struck one as slender. She 
 was pale, and there were dark rings beneath 
 her beautiful gray eyes ; her hair was brown, 
 of curiously different shades. In the deepest 
 tints it was dark brown not reddish, but 
 pure brown, paling here and there to a lighter 
 shade, while in the thick coils that lay about 
 her head were rings and gleams of gold. 
 Where had I seen hair like that before? 
 Hers and no other's it must have been, for, 
 search as one might, how often, in a lifetime, 
 could one find such softly shaded masses, 
 lighted up with gold? Her mouth was the 
 loveliest feature of her beautiful face. One 
 lip had a fashion of curling as she talked. 
 Her chin was square and firm, but soft and
 
 36 TALES 
 
 feminine too. She wore a gown of yellowish 
 brown of some soft silken stuff. Her neck 
 was bare in a tiny point in front, and in the 
 folds of the lace was one of the thousand- 
 leaved roses. Her whole appearance was 
 familiar to me, even to the ring on the hand 
 that lay lightly on her companion's arm. It 
 was a ring set with a rough gray stone, en 
 circled with diamonds. 
 
 The gentleman belonged in the picture too, 
 although his face and figure were not so vivid 
 as were the lady's. He was of about her 
 height, with fair, wavy hair, a slight mustache, 
 and blue eyes that never left his companion's 
 face as she talked eagerly upon some ap 
 parently engrossing theme. Her voice was 
 familiar too, as its tones came to me with 
 their pure quality, and now and then, as she 
 warmed with her subject, with inflections that 
 were not shrillness, but were like chords of a 
 yet purer quality. Possibly the familiarity 
 of face and figure might have been explained 
 by some coincidence, but the voice I had 
 heard before, yet when, or where, or how, I 
 did not know. 
 
 I put my hand to my forehead in the pain 
 ful struggle to recall where I had heard tones 
 that were surely hers far-off, haunting tones, 
 with their silvery cadences now and again 
 glancing into shrillness. No, not shrillness.
 
 PENH ALLOW 37 
 
 Such a voice as that could never become, 
 even in the course of years, sharp and ear- 
 splitting, penetrating walls and cleaving the 
 air, however one might seek to shut it out. 
 Why was it that I felt myself all at once in my 
 little attic chamber? I was growing dizzy. 
 
 I clutched the back of the nearest chair. 
 The sudden motion broke the spell. I could 
 see that the girl at the next table, who had 
 overheard the complimentary words Mrs. 
 Wason had spoken to me, was looking pleased 
 at my awkwardness. 
 
 The lady before me drew back her chair 
 herself, with the hand upon which was the 
 curious ring. 
 
 " So this is Martina? " said she. " Thank 
 you for the roses. I could not leave them all 
 behind, you see. I hope that Mrs. Wason 
 has as good a welcome for us here, for we 
 are hungry." 
 
 I told them, haltingly, what we had for 
 supper. 
 
 " Hot biscuit and tea for two," she ordered 
 promptly. 
 
 " Sarah, you must not eat hot biscuit, and 
 the doctor forbade tea, unconditionally," said 
 the gentleman earnestly. " Let me order toast 
 and milk for you." 
 
 " I detest milk. I am hungry, and will have 
 what I want."
 
 38 TALES 
 
 I hurried to the kitchen, where Mrs. Wason 
 was everywhere at once, breaking up pans of 
 biscuits, turning pancakes, and taking muffins 
 and waffles from the stove. Instead of giving 
 her my orders, I questioned, breathlessly : 
 
 " Mrs. Wason, who are the folks at my 
 table?" 
 
 " Lor', child, how flustrated yer be," said 
 she. "Them's Mr. and Mis' MacNeil Pen- 
 holler." 
 
 VI. 
 
 I WAS helping Mrs. Wason iron some of the 
 ladies' fine skirts, my grandmother having 
 taught me how to clear starch. Some of the 
 girls were afraid of doing more than they had 
 hired out to do, for Mrs. Wason not only 
 drove herself, but expected every one else to 
 drive, even if they were not bound anywhere 
 in particular. The original laundry was not 
 large enough for the present needs of the 
 house, and the old ball-room had been util 
 ized for that purpose. Tubs had been placed 
 along one side of the room and long ironing- 
 tables upon the other, with a stove at each 
 end on which to heat the flat-irons ; the long 
 windows, opening on the piazza, afforded easy 
 access to the drying-ground back of the 
 house. This was the first chance that I had
 
 PENHALLOW 39 
 
 had to ask the question that had been hover 
 ing on my lips for the past three days. 
 
 " Be they related ter the folks as used ter 
 live here? Yis, they're the great gran'chil- 
 dren ; he's Hon. MacNeil Penholler's gran'- 
 son, an' I've hearn tell is the livin' image of 
 his gran'pa. Hain't she hahn'some? Yer kin 
 see the real lady in her. Pity she hain't more 
 rugged. 'Twould ha' been better for her ef 
 she'd ha' be'n reared in the country, on good, 
 healthy victuals, beans an' pork an' pie, 'stid 
 o' the new-fangled dishes that Bostin folks like. 
 She's got dyspepsy consid'rable bad. I was 
 a-tellin' of her t'other mornin' how my son's 
 wife's appetite got so nippin' after she'd buried 
 Jemmy that she couldn't relish a dish o' beans 
 an' was never even pie-hungry. All she lived 
 on was milk ; she was a powerful hand to drink 
 milk used ter say she b'lieved she never was 
 weaned. She took ' Turlington's Balsam.' 
 Three drops on a lump of sugar ev'ry mornin' 
 until she could stumick a teaspoonful. Now 
 she's as rugged a woman as yer'd want ter 
 see, an' thinks nothin' of her big washes an' 
 the cookin' fur seven children an' all the men- 
 folks. She sets a store by ' Turlington's Bal 
 sam,' I kin tell yer. 
 
 " I hain't got no faith in doctors, but seein's 
 b'lievin', an' so I tol' Mis' Penholler. But 
 she's everlastin' set, an' I don' b'lieve minds
 
 40 TALES 
 
 the doctor any more'n suits her high-mighti 
 ness. She has nooraligy, too, all down her 
 back ; but when I tol' her of how I knew a 
 woman who'd cured folks by holdin' of their 
 heads, an' all they had ter do themselves was 
 jist ter have faith, she laughed as though she'd 
 die. The doctor calls her ailment nervous pros- 
 terration, an' she says his prescripture-on is 
 milk. Beats all what some folks will b'lieve. 
 
 " They was only married las' fall, so she an' 
 her husband set consid'rable store by each 
 other yit ; the doctor said she must git some 
 where where it was high an' dry an' there was 
 pine breezes instid o' salt ones. An' she said 
 she wouldn't leave Bostin unless her husband 
 could be with her; between yer an' me, I 
 rather guess it's she who's master. But when 
 she saw the picter of the Place in the cir- 
 cler an' how the steam-cars come up to the 
 very door, as yer may say, she made up her 
 min' on the spot that she would go ' home,' 
 as she persis' in callin' Penholler Place. She's 
 cur'us enough 'bout the house, an' asked me a 
 sight o' questions 'bout the rooms. I b'lieve 
 she actyerally thought as how I could remem 
 ber back t' her great-gran'ma'am's time. 
 
 " Yer'd oughter see her eyes open when I 
 tol' her that yer great-gran'ma'am was Ma'am 
 Penholler's own maid, an' that yer folks had 
 tol' me that yer was her livin' image.
 
 PENHALLOW 41 
 
 " Be yer through? Ef I kin do yer a good 
 turn, Martiny, I'll not forgit. 'Tain't many 
 as kin starch lace an' muslin like yer an' me, 
 ef I do say it ! " 
 
 VII. 
 
 EVERY morning Mrs. Penhallow would ac 
 company her husband across the lawn to the 
 little railroad station and remain on the plat 
 form till the train was out of sight. The train 
 by which he returned arrived at six o'clock, 
 and at half-past five Mrs. Penhallow, arrayed 
 in one of the lovely gowns of which she 
 had such a store, would be sitting at her 
 window watching for the first faint cloud of 
 smoke. 
 
 I liked to watch them from my post in the 
 dining-room, as with linked arms they slowly 
 crossed the lawn. Once or twice Mr. Pen 
 hallow was detained in town until ten o'clock, 
 but she was at the station, as usual, to greet 
 him, while she had delayed her own supper 
 that they might partake of it together. One 
 morning, at breakfast, I noticed how red her 
 eyes were, nor was it possible to avoid over 
 hearing some of the words that passed between 
 them. She had a high way of disregarding 
 that which holds most people in check the 
 thought of what folks may say.
 
 42 TALES 
 
 " Don't go, darling." 
 
 " But I shall soon return, Sarah." 
 
 " Let somebody else go ; I want you to 
 stay with me." 
 
 " No other person can attend to this busi 
 ness as well as I. New York is not so long a 
 journey from here that you will have time to 
 miss me before I am home again." 
 
 " Stay with me. Just this once. Don't 
 leave me, Mac, dearest." 
 
 But in spite of her persuasion I saw that he 
 had his travelling-bag with him as they crossed 
 the lawn ; from her gestures it was evident 
 that she was seeking to detain him to the very 
 last. The morning following his departure she 
 sent word for her breakfast to be brought to 
 her room. I laid upon the tray some branches 
 of swamp pinks that I had gathered near my 
 old home that morning. Harry had driven 
 me over several times of late. Mrs. Wason 
 let me go whenever I asked, on condition that 
 I was back in time to wait upon the breakfast 
 table. 
 
 " Come," said Mrs. Penhallow's voice ; and 
 I entered. 
 
 She was in bed. Her arms, bare to the 
 elbow, were flung over her head, and her hair 
 lay in masses upon the pillow. I drew a table 
 to the bedside, placed the tray upon it, and 
 was about to withdraw.
 
 PENHALLOW 43 
 
 " Don't go," she said listlessly. " I want 
 to talk with you." 
 
 So I sat down in the chair she indicated, 
 and waited till she had sipped the strong 
 coffee that she had been so particular in 
 ordering. 
 
 " Thank you for the flowers," she said pres 
 ently ; " you keep my room like a garden. 
 Did those grow near here? " raising the pinks 
 to her face. 
 
 I told her shyly where it was that I had 
 gathered them, as well as the roses. 
 
 " Do you really take all that trouble to 
 bring me flowers? You are very kind, 
 Martina." 
 
 " I love to gather them for you," I said 
 impulsively. 
 
 " They came from your old home, you say? 
 Tell me about it." 
 
 I forgot that she was one of the fine Boston 
 folks, and that I was only a poor country girl, 
 and was soon describing my home, and even 
 telling her of my grief when I heard that father 
 had sold it and gone to the poorhouse. Em 
 boldened by her interest, I went on to tell her 
 about some of the paupers, concluding with a 
 description of old Sally Waters, who sat on 
 the south steps all day, shrieking at intervals 
 about the witches who " tormented her 'most 
 to death."
 
 44 TALES 
 
 " Poor old woman, who knows what Furies 
 may be pursuing her from out the shadows 
 of the past ! " said Mrs. Penhallow, gently. 
 " It was but a sorry home-coming for you, 
 Martina." 
 
 She detained me some time longer that 
 morning, listening and asking questions. She 
 had not been feeling as well as usual, she said, 
 and after lying awake till dawn had then fallen 
 into a heavy sleep. 
 
 She suffered terribly at times from neural 
 gia; some nights she walked up and down 
 the room until early morning, when the pain 
 would lessen. But no matter what the agony 
 had been, she always appeared with her hus 
 band at the breakfast table. She was not even 
 looking as well as when she first came to Pen- 
 hallow Place, despite the " healthy situation 
 and pine breezes." After that morning when 
 I first talked with her she took considerable 
 notice of me in one way or another, and when 
 I took her breakfast to her room, which I did 
 whenever business had called Mr. Penhallow 
 away overnight, she would bid me remain 
 at first, I think, from a desire for any diversion, 
 but after a while I am sure it was because she 
 was really interested. 
 
 I supposed, for some time, that her hus 
 band's absence was the reason for her non- 
 appearance at the breakfast table; but by
 
 PENHALLOW 45 
 
 degrees I began to suspect that something was 
 wrong about those morning naps, she was so 
 drowsy and heavy-eyed, and would so eagerly 
 drink the strong black coffee she always 
 ordered. It was later than usual one day 
 when I entered her room, and she was half 
 asleep, but aroused herself to say, as I placed 
 the tray on the table : 
 
 "Is that you, Martina? Give me the cof 
 fee." 
 
 It was partly, perhaps, because the story of 
 Madam Penhallow was so familiar to me, and 
 because Mrs. Penhallow was so inextricably 
 tangled up in my mind with the story of long 
 ago, that the dawning truth grew clear to me 
 in a flash, and I cried : 
 
 " Oh, don't ! " 
 
 The cup at her lips was replaced in the 
 tray, and there was both astonishment and 
 anger in Mrs. Penhallow's tones as she said : 
 
 " Don't drink coffee? You forget yourself, 
 Martina." 
 
 " No, no ; I mean don't take opium." 
 
 There was a full half-minute's silence. 
 
 " What do you mean? " she said haughtily. 
 " I have encouraged you too much by listen 
 ing to your prattle. I take nothing of the 
 kind." And she drained the cup at one 
 draught. 
 
 But she had inadvertently denied more
 
 46 TALES 
 
 than she intended. With a Penhallow truth 
 was truth, without argument or sophistry. 
 
 " I take morphine," she said ; " and what 
 objection have you to my doing so, pray?" 
 
 " Please don't," I begged. " I am afraid 
 that some day you might take too much." 
 
 Her lip curled scornfully. 
 
 " And you believe all those old woman's 
 stories? Doubtless morphine might be dan 
 gerous in the hands of an ignorant country 
 woman, but I am not likely to blunder. Are 
 you afraid that some morning you will bring 
 your flowers and find only an unpleasant body 
 to which to offer them?" Her scornful tone 
 changed as in silence I took the tray and 
 turned to leave the room. "What can I do? " 
 she said impatiently. " You don't know the 
 temptation. The pain is horrible. It torments 
 me almost to death ! " And the sharpness of 
 her voice fairly rang through the room. 
 
 I had dropped the tray, and, unheeding 
 the broken china, stood regarding her wildly. 
 When had I heard her voice before, strained 
 with agony, sharp with mingled despair and 
 defiance, utter those very words? 
 
 The strain was too much for my self-con 
 trol, and I burst into tears. 
 
 " There, Martina, don't take it to heart," 
 said Mrs. Penhallow, in her usual careless, 
 imperious tones. " You meant no harm.
 
 PENHALLOW 47 
 
 That is all I require this morning ; you can 
 go now." And I went. 
 
 It was of Madam Penhallow that she liked 
 best to hear, and I to relate, in those confi 
 dential hours in her room. 
 
 "You do not know the hold that she has 
 always had upon my imagination," she said, 
 one day. " It has become stronger than ever 
 since I have lived in this house. None of us 
 ever dared question our grandfather about- 
 the strange story that we vaguely knew was 
 connected with Madam Penhallow. 
 
 "One day I was rummaging through some 
 old chests in the store-room, when I came 
 upon a miniature of her by Malbone. My 
 likeness to the pictured face was apparent 
 even to myself. I could fancy at times that 
 the strong will and wild passion still linger in 
 these rooms, ready to exert their influence 
 over those whom, by birth and blood, she 
 may claim. I cannot believe that she would 
 have been content to give up her sway with 
 life." 
 
 Mrs. Penhallow talked oddly sometimes. 
 Often, after leaving her room, I would hurry 
 through the corridors and run down the stairs, 
 sure that a tall, stately figure, in the robes of 
 eighty years ago, was gliding after me. 
 
 " Do you mean that you think her ghost is 
 here ? " I asked, one day.
 
 48 TALES 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " she laughed. " Have I 
 been frightening you by my vagaries ? I was 
 only wondering how much influence mind 
 can have over mind, even though one has 
 been for a half-century what men call dead." 
 
 I did not know what she meant. I thought 
 a ghost was a ghost, but she seemed to con 
 sider that there was something vulgar in that 
 idea. 
 
 Some Sunday, she had said, she wanted me 
 to show her and Mr. Penhallow about the 
 mansion, for I knew its every nook and cor 
 ner, and what purpose each room had served 
 in the old time. The first Sunday slipped by, 
 and on the second they went to church in the 
 morning, and in the afternoon took a long 
 walk. But the following week Mrs. Penhallow 
 sent for me and reminded me of her wish. 
 
 " You know that these rooms were Madam 
 Penhallow's own? " I began. 
 
 " There is a horrible depressing influence 
 about them that would have told me, even if 
 Mrs. Wason had not," she returned impa 
 tiently. " No, Mac, I cannot shake off the 
 feeling that something is about to happen." 
 
 Her words were evidently in continuation 
 of a conversation that my entrance had inter 
 rupted. She was walking excitedly up and 
 down the room. Mr. Penhallow was seated, 
 with a newspaper in his hand.
 
 PENHALLOW 49 
 
 " Are you oppressed with a haunting sense 
 of impending evil?" he questioned gravely. 
 
 " That is it, exactly," she assented eagerly. 
 " I never experienced the feeling before, but, 
 strive as I may, I cannot drive it from me." 
 
 " Are your dreams troubled, your sleep 
 restless? Are you haunted by strange fan 
 cies and morbid imaginings in your waking 
 hours? " 
 
 " All that, Mac, and more. I am tormented 
 almost to death ! Don't look so wild, Mar 
 tina ! Let us leave this hateful place," she 
 went on, too excited to see that her husband 
 was laughing behind his screen. 
 
 " Then take ' Swinton's Specific ! ' " he con 
 cluded, pointing with an air of mock convic 
 tion to a newspaper advertisement he had been 
 reading. At first she did not know whether 
 to be angry or to laugh, but at last she chose 
 the latter course. 
 
 " If you would leave tea and coffee alone, 
 you would stop having presentiments. Dys 
 pepsia is answerable for much of the bigotry 
 and superstition of this world," said Mr. Pen- 
 hallow. 
 
 " Who knows but what, in time, I may come 
 to put faith in ' Turlington,' ghosts, and the 
 faith cure ! " she returned gayly, slipping her 
 hand through his arm. " Come, let us go. 
 If we encounter the traditional white-robed
 
 50 TALES 
 
 figure, clanking chains and diffusing sulphuric 
 fumes, we are three strong and can surely lay 
 her. Martina is actually pale listening to our 
 rambling talk." 
 
 I led the way through the state rooms. 
 General Lafayette had slept here ; Daniel 
 Webster had once occupied this apartment 
 for three days. Count Rumford always had 
 this room, with its view down the river. These 
 rooms had been known as " Bachelors' Cor 
 ridor." The last apartments we visited were 
 those in the south wing, where each boy 
 had had a separate room, except Ralph and 
 George, who always slept together. This 
 corner room had been " Little Mac's." I 
 stopped, blushing, for I had forgotten, in my 
 earnestness, that I was not speaking of a 
 golden-haired little boy, but of Hon. MacNeil 
 Penhallow, who had made famous speeches 
 in Congress and had been sent abroad as 
 minister to more than one foreign court. 
 
 " Dear little fellow ! " mused Mrs. Pen- 
 hallow. " Can't you see him, Mac, in his 
 velvet knee-breeches, his wide sash, and his 
 yellow curls? I wonder if his mother kept 
 a lock of that shining hair in her fierce old 
 age?" 
 
 " I wish that we could indeed have met her 
 in the corridors, overthrow though it would 
 have been to our Boston scepticism, for with
 
 PENH ALLOW 51 
 
 all my heart I would have given her the for 
 giveness that her Little Mac would have 
 granted so freely. He could never hold ran 
 cor, you know." 
 
 " And I know one who is as like him in 
 spirit as in form and face," she returned, 
 softly. 
 
 At the door of their own room Mrs. Pen- 
 hallow turned to me. 
 
 " I have been telling Mr. Penhallow about 
 your old home," she said. " We will go there 
 with you to-morrow morning." 
 
 " The wagon has no springs, and we shall 
 have to start at four o'clock," I faltered. 
 
 " That is the way and the time we want to 
 go. It would destroy all the savor to order 
 the horses and carriage and go at an orthodox 
 hour. Be sure and wake us in time." 
 
 So I ran downstairs to tell Harry to put an 
 extra seat in the wagon. He had been help 
 ing Mr. Wason lately with the chores. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE road led down the village street and 
 across the big iron bridge, till presently it 
 brought us to the open country. We drove 
 past belts and groves of pines and stretches of 
 woodland ; then, for a while, along the high
 
 52 TALES 
 
 river bank, with the water gleaming through 
 its fringe of birches and alders. Emerging 
 again into the open country, the road led 
 past fields that stretched, on either hand, to 
 far in the distance. 
 
 The tall pines that now bordered the road 
 shut off my old home from view till we turned 
 into the rocky driveway and the next moment 
 were in sight of a long, low house. Apple 
 and pear and cherry trees covered the slopes 
 about. Farther up the hill lay the garden, in 
 which vegetables and flowers grew together 
 in friendlyjuxtaposition. Over there, by the 
 stone wall, were the beehives, and there was 
 the well, whose site father had discovered by 
 means of a witch-hazel wand. The last place 
 that we visited was the little pool by the 
 hedge. 
 
 " I do not wonder that you love your home," 
 said Mrs. Penhallow. 
 
 " You cannot understand," said I. " It does 
 not seem to me as though Boston folks had 
 any real home. Your houses are all just 
 alike, and there are no trees and flowers and 
 grass and a big piece of all out-of-doors for 
 you." 
 
 " I do understand," she answered with un 
 wonted gentleness. " Do you think that I 
 can live, day after day, in my own lost home 
 and not feel its influence? Morbid memories
 
 PENH ALLOW 53 
 
 have kept Madam Penhallow's descendants 
 from New Hampshire until now; but I have 
 always felt towards it the genuine love for the 
 fatherland. They say that nothing could keep 
 Madam Penhallow long away from her home. 
 I have always maintained that she and I had 
 much in common." 
 
 " Don't say that, Sarah," remonstrated Mr. 
 Penhallow. " The only resemblance between 
 you is in your appearance." 
 
 " And that must have diminished if I am 
 as ' peaked ' as Mrs. Wason says I am," she 
 laughed. " See," holding out her left hand 
 to me, " when I was married I insisted that 
 my wedding-ring should be the same that the 
 Penhallow women used to have a bit of 
 granite. It does not fit my finger as well as 
 it once did." 
 
 " You must not stay longer in this damp 
 place," urged her husband. "Sarah, don't! " 
 For, as though in defiance of his words, she 
 had sunk on her knees in the wet grass and 
 was bending forward to scoop up some water 
 with her hands. 
 
 " This is the way," I said, and pinned an 
 oak leaf together in the form of a cup, which 
 she filled and handed to Mr. Penhallow. She 
 knelt till she had filled the cup again and sat 
 isfied her own thirst. 
 
 Harry had just turned into the driveway on
 
 54 TALES 
 
 his return from his rounds as we approached 
 the house again. The folks who now lived 
 there were a young married couple, who 
 made me free to come home whenever I 
 pleased. The woman was standing in the 
 doorway. 
 
 "We're jest a-settin' down to breakfus," 
 said she, in greeting. " Hadn't yer better come 
 in an' hev some ? Yer must be hungry after 
 yer ride." 
 
 " Let us go in, Mac. I want to breakfast 
 in the queer little house," said Mrs. Penhal- 
 low, eagerly. 
 
 They insisted that I should have the place 
 of honor at the table. Mrs. Penhallow ate 
 heartily, and nobody would ever have known 
 but that she was being entertained in the 
 house of one of her own friends. 
 
 We finished the meal at last, and Harry 
 went to unhitch the horse. Our hands were 
 full of flowers as we again clambered to our 
 seats in the wagon. 
 
 " We shall not forget our visit," called 
 Mrs. Penhallow as we started down the 
 steep driveway, our host and hostess smil 
 ing good-by to us from the doorway. " We 
 will come again next summer and breakfast 
 together." 
 
 But that never came to pass. When one 
 day, the following year, I sat again as hostess
 
 PENHALLOW 55 
 
 in the little kitchen, two v of those who had been 
 with us on that sunny July morning had gone, 
 never to return. 
 
 IX. 
 
 FOR the next few days Mrs. Penhallowwas 
 ill. The exposure in the wet grass, together 
 with the jolting ride and the unaccustomed 
 food at breakfast, combined to bring on a 
 feverish condition, from which she was some 
 time in rallying. The illness left its effect in 
 neuralgic attacks that were sharper and more 
 frequent than ever. 
 
 The ladies had been for some time past 
 planning a hop. Caterers from Boston were 
 to take charge, and Mrs. Wason had consented 
 to let the old ball-room be restored, for that 
 evening, to its original purpose. Mrs. Pen- 
 hallow threw herself into every project, and 
 was the acknowledged leader in all. 
 
 No one, however, knew the agony she en 
 dured, least of all her husband. In his pres 
 ence all indication of pain was suppressed. I 
 never knew how much of this concealment was 
 due to the exercise of her will and the desire 
 
 that had its root mainly in a morbid fancy 
 
 always to appear her loveliest before him, 
 and how much to a keenly susceptible nervous 
 temperament, upon which excitement may
 
 56 TALES 
 
 have been a tonic more potent than quinine 
 or aconite. But it was not worth while to 
 play a part before me. 
 
 The folks were making a great ado deco 
 rating the ball-room. Mr. Wason drove some 
 of them in his hay-cart to the woods, where 
 they picnicked and remained till late in the 
 afternoon, returning with a load of evergreen, 
 boxberries, and ferns. The wash-tubs were 
 to be filled with moss and young spruces, and 
 the ironing-tables to be banked with flowers, 
 for which the country around was scoured. 
 Mrs. Penhallow was with the picnicking party, 
 although she had been suffering terribly be 
 fore she started. When I went to her room 
 after her return, I found her kneeling by the 
 side of the bed, her face buried in her out 
 stretched arms. 
 
 " It is past help," she answered impa 
 tiently, when I wanted to summon the doctor. 
 " It is intolerable. Life is not worth living 
 at this price." 
 
 But when, half an hour later, the gong 
 sounded and she came into the dining-room 
 with her husband, there was not a trace of 
 suffering on her face. 
 
 Nothing was talked about but the hop. 
 There were a good many differences of 
 opinion regarding the arrangements, out of 
 which sprang much ill-feeling. One lady
 
 PENH ALLOW 57 
 
 wanted the hall draped with flags, and was 
 offended because somebody else said that it 
 was not to be a militia turn-out ; and as the 
 first lady's husband was in the militia she 
 always addressed him as " Colonel " she 
 thought she was insulted, and would not 
 have anything more to do with the affair. 
 Then several of the young ladies arranged in 
 the corners bunches of cat-tails, tied up with 
 gay ribbons, and the children had a fine time 
 picking the down off the tails. Bits of fuzz 
 were all over the house and on everybody's 
 gowns for days after, and the ladies who had 
 children, and those who had not, were ranged 
 in opposing factions. Then some of the 
 ladies who had been gathering ferns took a 
 short cut home, with the result of losing their 
 way in a swamp ; the next day most of their 
 number were afflicted with severe colds, and 
 were worried because they were afraid that 
 their eyes and noses would not be reduced in 
 time to their proper color and dimensions. 
 The cook scolded because all the sour milk 
 was used to anoint the burnt faces ; Mr. 
 Wason grumbled because everybody ex 
 pected him to be at beck and call, chopping 
 down trees and nailing up wreaths ; and Mrs. 
 Wason declared a dozen times a day that it 
 was " pesky nonsense lit'rin' up the wash 
 room with all that green truck."
 
 58 TALES 
 
 Three or four days before the evening, Mr. 
 Penhallow found it would be necessary for 
 him to be absent a few days. As usual, Mrs. 
 Penhallow begged him not to go. What did 
 she care for the hop if he were not there ? He 
 tried to comfort her by pointing out that his 
 absence could not have occurred at a better 
 time than when she was engrossed with these 
 multitudinous preparations, and promised 
 that he would be back in time for the ball, 
 even if he had to come by a special train. 
 Her only reply was that she took no interest 
 in anything if he was not by her side. 
 
 On the morning of his departure she had 
 on a travelling-suit; I supposed that they had 
 settled the vexed question by her accom 
 panying him on his journey. But in half 
 an hour there was a well-known peal of the 
 bell. Mrs. Penhallow wanted some hot 
 water. She had evidently been indulging in 
 a good cry, her stratagem of keeping her 
 husband company having failed. 
 
 The latest project in regard to the hop was 
 to have it resemble the anniversary ball that 
 had been given every year at the Place by 
 Madam Penhallow. Even the date was to be 
 the same. Then when somebody suggested 
 that Mrs. Penhallow ought to play the part of 
 lady of the manor, the idea was received with 
 acclamation. But after this fresh impetus to
 
 PENH ALLOW 59 
 
 the general interest there came a lull. The 
 weather was hot, the mistress of ceremonies 
 had evidently lost all interest in the affair, and 
 the disappointments about the costumes were 
 innumerable. The ladies who were so fortu 
 nate as to own old-fashioned gowns sent for 
 them, Mrs. Penhallow being among the num 
 ber ; the others tried to borrow from friends, 
 but with everybody out of town that was not 
 an easy matter to arrange. Then there was 
 another falling-out over the question, " Should 
 masks be worn? " Those who had colds in 
 their heads were loud in their favor, while 
 the proposition was scouted by the ones who 
 had escaped influenza. The decision finally 
 reached was that everybody should suit her 
 self, and go masked or not ; with which set 
 tlement of the vexed question neither party 
 was satisfied. 
 
 The day before the ball Mrs. Penhallow 
 sent for me and showed me her gown ; it was 
 Madam Penhallow's own wedding-dress. 
 
 " I take so little interest in the whole affair 
 that I have only just unpacked this," she said. 
 " If I had not agreed to play hostess, I would 
 not appear at all. The lace is torn here and 
 there look at the frightful rent in the veil 
 and there is no time to send to Boston. 
 Do you suppose you could mend it? " 
 
 My grandmother's instructions had been
 
 60 TALES 
 
 thorough, but there proved to be more work 
 than one pair of hands could accomplish 
 alone. " If I might take it home, mother and 
 I could work on it together," I suggested. 
 
 " Go at once, then," said Mrs. Penhallow ; 
 " I will speak to Mrs. Wason. You will not 
 disappoint me? " 
 
 " I will bring it to you early to-morrow 
 evening," I promised. 
 
 " The gloves, too, may need mending. I 
 want to wear the whole costume," she added, 
 and went to the bureau for the articles in 
 question. With her impatient pull at the 
 gloves, from out the confusion of the drawer 
 a little round box fell to the floor and rolled 
 to my feet. I picked it up and was about to 
 replace it, when, to my surprise, Mrs. Pen- 
 hallow snatched it from my hand. But not 
 before I had seen the inscription on the label, 
 below a little cut of a death's-head. 
 
 " Oh, don't ! " I cried. " If you only 
 knew " 
 
 " If I only knew ! " she repeated, mockingly, 
 in the high-pitched tones in which she had 
 before given vent to her irritation. " What 
 is the matter now?" she added abruptly, for 
 at the familiarity of her unfamiliar voice my 
 heart almost seemed to still its beating, my 
 tongue had become dry and parched. I felt 
 as though I were on the verge of a precipice,
 
 PENH ALLOW 61 
 
 and then the mist had shut out everything 
 again. Instinctively I put out my hand like 
 a blind person's. 
 
 Mrs. Penhallow went on, in calmer tones : 
 
 " Are you going to preach the doctrine of 
 milk and early to bed, too? I shall not die 
 from morphine ; they even say that the habit 
 tends to prolong life unfortunately, I often 
 think, for I am growing more cadaverous and 
 ugly every day." She pushed her hair from 
 her face and regarded herself critically in the 
 mirror. " ' Better be dead than ugly,' said 
 Madame Recamier, and she was right." 
 
 In the morning I came over to the Place 
 to assure her that my mother and I had al 
 ready made considerable progress in repairing 
 the lace. She was on the lounge in the dress 
 ing-room, white and spent with pain. 
 
 " I should not care if you were unable to 
 finish the work," she said languidly; and 
 then, talking more to herself than to me, she 
 went on : 
 
 " I am fairly weighed down with a sense of 
 impending evil. She drove her daughter 
 Elizabeth to her death for having usurped 
 her place in her husband's love. I have come 
 into her home. I have slept beneath her 
 roof, in her very room. I have usurped her 
 name, her features, her character. To-night 
 I am to take the final step."
 
 62 TALES 
 
 There she was, running on again about 
 ghosts and presentiments. I never stopped 
 to draw breath till I was out of the house. I 
 was so frightened and worried at her strange 
 words that I repeated them to mother as we 
 sat with our needles over the injured lace. 
 
 " Lor', child," said she, " that's dyspepsy. 
 It's jes the way yer Aunt Elmiry takes on. 
 Yer'd think as how she didn't calkerlate ter 
 live another minute." 
 
 But my mind was not set at rest. 
 
 It was an intensely hot day, and every door 
 and window was wide open. On the steps 
 old Sally Waters sat, as usual, shrieking her 
 terror. Of late she had been more restless 
 and unmanageable than ever. 
 
 Our task was completed at dusk. Mother 
 would return presently to fold the gown, in 
 readiness for me to take to the Place ; but 
 now she must hurry to the dining-room, on 
 the other side of the house, for there was to 
 be blueberry pie for supper, and it would 
 need all her authority to keep the paupers 
 within bounds. 
 
 I hastened to my room. The maids were 
 also to wear old-fashioned costumes, and my 
 dress was one of my great-grandmother's a 
 bright figured muslin with the waist under the 
 armpits. I spent a long time before the look 
 ing-glass, wondering how Harry would like
 
 PENHALLOW 63 
 
 me in my new-old array. I started at hear 
 ing the clock strike nine, for the dancing was 
 to begin at that hour, and Mrs. Penhallow was 
 without her gown. 
 
 In the entry below I ran into Harry's arms. 
 
 " Aren't you coming ? " said he. " Oh, how 
 nice you look ! " 
 
 " Do you really like me ?" I asked. 
 
 " Like you ! " he repeated, with emphasis. 
 " There will be no one there who will look 
 as nice. Come ! They are marching around 
 the room now. You never saw anything so 
 splendid." 
 
 " What has Mrs. Penhallow done without 
 her gown?" I exclaimed. 
 
 " Mrs. Penhallow has been there this half- 
 hour at the head of the room." 
 
 Impatient at the delay, she had evidently 
 sent for the dress, and mother must have given 
 it to the messenger. A glance at the empty 
 table where an hour before the robes had been 
 outspread confirmed the surmise. So, gather 
 ing up my gown in one hand, I gave the other 
 hand to Harry, and we raced up the hill and 
 down again on the other side, and ran, breath 
 less, up the piazza, steps to ensconce ourselves 
 near one of the long open windows, hidden 
 from view behind the screen of metamorphosed 
 wash-tubs.
 
 64 TALES 
 
 X. 
 
 HER gown fitted Mrs. Penhallow as though 
 it had been made for her. She wore no mask, 
 but the heavy veil, drawn over her face, as 
 effectively concealed her features. Mr. Pen- 
 hallow was not present, and it was not difficult 
 to understand why the hostess had elected to 
 appear, after all, with masked face. She de 
 clined to dance, but moved about, at intervals, 
 among her guests. Every one noticed how her 
 head turned restlessly towards the entrance, 
 and that her answers to any attempted con 
 versation were singularly irrelevant. Naturally 
 every one remarked : 
 
 " Mr. Penhallow will be here, I hope? " 
 
 " Yes, he is coming. He promised me that 
 he would come," was the reply to all alike. 
 
 But the ten o'clock train arrived without 
 bringing him. Mrs. Penhallow now seemed 
 to avoid every one, and, as though her gloom 
 were infectious, a chill had fallen upon the 
 whole company. Harry and I could see how 
 listlessly they moved through waltz and quad 
 rille, and how they resolved into couples and 
 groups as soon as each dance was at an end, 
 keeping an anxious eye upon the door while 
 they made pretence at conversation. Could
 
 PENHALLOW 65 
 
 any accident have happened to Mr. Penhal- 
 low? Their uneasiness, as well as mine, may 
 have taken that form. 
 
 The whistle of the eleven o'clock train 
 pierced the still summer night. Harry and 
 I could see that somebody had stepped out 
 at the station ; that a man's figure was racing 
 across the lawn, which, as it came within the 
 radius of light from the portico, proved un 
 mistakably to be that of Mr. Penhallow. We 
 heard his footsteps upon the stairs and then 
 the door of his room close. Supper was to 
 be served at twelve o'clock, when the masks 
 were to be removed. 
 
 There was a sudden stir in the ball-room, 
 a cessation of the buzz of conversation, and a 
 sigh of relief that was distinctly audible, com 
 ing, as it did, from all present, for the glances 
 towards the door were at last rewarded. 
 Mrs. Penhallow was hastening to meet her 
 husband. 
 
 He was arrayed in knee-breeches and black 
 silk stockings, with low shoes clasped by dia 
 mond buckles. With his ruffled shirt, the 
 long lace ruffles that fell over his hands, the 
 fair, curly wig with its cue tied up with a 
 black ribbon, even his mustache gone that 
 he might better play his part, he looked 
 to perfection the gallant gentleman of the 
 early century, and handsome enough to 
 s
 
 66 TALES 
 
 have won any woman's heart. Husband and 
 wife met by the window outside of which we 
 stood. 
 
 She held out both her hands. 
 
 " I knew you would not fail me, Mac," she 
 said softly. 
 
 " Not if human means could have pre 
 vented, darling. I was sorry that I could not 
 get here before." 
 
 " The time has been long, love. And I 
 was sorrowful, thinking of our parting. It 
 was all my fault, Mac. I could not rest till 
 I had begged for your forgiveness. I could 
 not sleep, even in the grave, unless I knew 
 that you had forgiven me." 
 
 " My darling, if all mortal sin were summed 
 up against you, it would be outweighed by 
 my love. I have wished more than once 
 that I had answered you more gently, and 
 had said good-by that last morning less 
 abruptly. It was hard, love, to be left all 
 alone in this great house." 
 
 " It was indeed empty without you." 
 
 " Not a moment has passed that I did not 
 long to be at your side again." 
 
 " Kiss me, Mac." 
 
 " What here ? Before all these people ? ' ' 
 
 Accustomed as he was to her lofty disre 
 gard of comment, he was somewhat taken 
 aback by this sudden demand.
 
 PENHALLOW 67 
 
 " There is only one person in the room to 
 me, but one to you." 
 
 He solved the dilemma by sinking on one 
 knee and raising her hand to his lips. He 
 retained the clasp as he arose. 
 
 " Your disguise is easily penetrated," he 
 said gayly. " Your ring would tell tales, if 
 nothing else did. I thought you were not to 
 mask. There are those who need it more." 
 
 " But if I were one of those who wore a 
 mask with cause, would you love me less, 
 Mac? " 
 
 " I cannot fancy you other than as you 
 are." 
 
 But she pressed the question. 
 
 " You would care for me the same even 
 though my beauty had become a thing of the 
 past?" 
 
 " If I were absent a hundred years it could 
 make no difference in my love, except to in 
 crease it a hundred fold." 
 
 The answer seemed to satisfy her. 
 
 " Let us stay here," she said softly. " I 
 have not felt my hand in yours for so long." 
 
 Presently she saw me, in the dark, with 
 out. 
 
 "You are here, Martina?" she said. 
 " You did well to have my gown in readi 
 ness ; I could have worn nothing else." 
 
 Her voice, muffled though it was, sounded
 
 68 TALES 
 
 sharper than its wont, except as I had 
 heard it in occasional moments of pain or 
 irritation, and the tones brought with them 
 the inexplicable weight of misery with which 
 they seemed always freighted. I had fancied 
 my uneasiness would be over with Mr. Pen- 
 hallow's return. 
 
 The last waltz had come to an end. The 
 company were dispersed about the room, 
 waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Penhallow to lead 
 them to the supper-room. On a sudden 
 thought I ran around to the portico to see 
 the company march down the staircase. 
 
 The air was resonant with the hum of 
 voices and the softened strains of the band. 
 The leading couple were crossing the hall 
 below, when there suddenly appeared on the 
 threshold of the supper-room a familiar face 
 and form. 
 
 Was it a hideous dream ? Were all in that 
 throng petrified in a nightmare, too, as they 
 gazed at the figure that was confronting the 
 stately couple who were leading the pageant? 
 
 It was Mrs. Penhallow. 
 
 There she stood, with one arm slightly up 
 raised, and upon the third finger of its hand 
 there glittered the granite ring. Her white 
 gown clung to her like grave cerements. 
 Her face was pale and sunken and her eyes 
 were dimmed and heavy, wide open though
 
 PENHALLOW 69 
 
 they were in their fierce, fixed gaze at that 
 strange woman by her husband's side. 
 
 The silence was broken by a shriek, and 
 then a long, piercing, blood-curdling wail : 
 
 " Elizabeth ! " 
 
 The figure that had borne its share in the 
 evening's festivity had dropped the clutch on 
 its companion's arm and darted through the 
 open door into the darkness without. The 
 heavy robes, the fluttering lace, brushed 
 against me. The veil was torn aside. 
 
 And I saw what it had concealed. 
 
 Through the night, as the flying figure 
 passed me, came the words : 
 
 " The witches are after me ! The witches 
 are after me ! " 
 
 XI. 
 
 I ENTERED the poorhouse and staggered 
 towards my mother's room. There was a light 
 inside. At the sound of my voice my father 
 came to the door. 
 
 " Where is she? " I gasped. 
 
 "What does it mean?" he questioned. 
 
 " Where is she?" I repeated. 
 
 " Old Sally Waters roused us jes now by her 
 shrieks at the door. How did she git hold of 
 that dress? " 
 
 "Where is she where is she?" I panted.
 
 70 TALES 
 
 " Don't ask me anything now. Let me go 
 to her ; " and I freed myself from his grasp 
 to hurry to the room at the end of the cor 
 ridor. 
 
 There she lay on her bed of straw, the rich 
 gown outspread in its length of train on the 
 unpainted floor. Her staring eyeballs gleamed 
 in ghastly unconsciousness through their half- 
 closed lids. 
 
 My mother was trying to place a bedspread 
 over her, but, as though she disdained the ugly 
 calico coverlid, it was automatically pushed 
 aside again and again. I sank on the chair by 
 the bedside and buried my face in my hands. 
 Mother and father stood by the door, whis 
 pering their conjectures. Once and again one 
 of them would come to the bedside and scan 
 the dying woman's face, but there seemed to 
 be no change in her condition. Life was so 
 plainly at its lowest ebb that it was not worth 
 while to call the doctor. 
 
 On the floor near by was the leather string, 
 knotted about a bit of gray flannel that the 
 old woman had worn around her neck. I 
 picked it up mechanically. In the rag a small 
 circle was almost worn through, and in a clus 
 ter were two or three tiny holes. A few silky 
 golden hairs clung to the rag. 
 
 The little blue chest at the head of the bed 
 was open. Could the rags it contained, with
 
 PENH ALLOW 71 
 
 their loathsome contents, have been a tally by 
 which reckoning had been kept of the depart 
 ing years? Had the sight of the wedding- 
 gown been the shock that had served to unite 
 old associations, and, sending all the life yet 
 left in the withered frame spinning and reeling 
 to the head, enabled the once iron will to make 
 its last mortal effort? 
 
 The minutes crept slowly on till that time 
 when death comes oftenest. The dying wom 
 an's eyes were suddenly opened. They met 
 mine. She raised her right hand and placed it 
 upon her left as it lay upon her breast, thus 
 covering the granite ring. 
 
 " I understand," I whispered. 
 
 A minute later the breathing ceased. 
 
 " Let her lie as she is," I said, when mother 
 would have disrobed her, " till I have told 
 Mrs. Penhallow." 
 
 Some boys were going past the poorhouse, 
 bound on an early fishing excursion. Their 
 mocking chant floated in to us : 
 
 " Rise, Sally, rise, 
 Wipe off your eyes ! "
 
 72 TALES 
 
 XII. 
 
 AT the Place everything was in confusion. 
 The halls were piled high with baggage, and 
 ladies and children were standing about in 
 travelling array. In the kitchen there was an 
 excited group. 
 
 "Did you know have you heard?" was 
 the general exclamation as I entered. " Every 
 body is going, and Mrs. Wason is at her wits' 
 end." 
 
 " Have the PenTiallows gone? " 
 
 " They are going on the noon train. Most 
 of the ladies fainted or had hysterics. One 
 woman declared that she saw the figure whom 
 we all thought was Mrs. Penhallow running 
 over the hill towards the graveyard, and " 
 the girl lowered her voice and glanced ner 
 vously over her shoulder " as true as you 
 live, Mr. Wason found the veil this morning, 
 as he was driving the cows to pasture, half 
 way up the hill." 
 
 " Mrs. Wason says it was somebody play 
 ing a trick on us." 
 
 " It was Mrs. Penhallow or her double who 
 was in the ball-room last night," cried another, 
 argumentatively. 
 
 Without waiting to hear the end of the dis-
 
 PENHALLOW 73 
 
 cussion, or rather its progress, for the end 
 was never reached, I hastened to Mrs. Pen- 
 hallow's room. 
 
 She was in bed, and her husband was 
 seated near by, with an expression upon his 
 face that would have been sternness in a less 
 gentle nature. Here, too, I had evidently 
 interrupted a discussion the nature of which 
 was the same as that going on downstairs. 
 
 " Did you see it?" questioned Mrs. Pen- 
 hallow, with a shudder. 
 
 I told them the inner meaning of the story 
 which dated back eighty years. When I had 
 ended, I was not crying alone. 
 
 " Let her be buried in her wedding gown," 
 said Mrs. Penhallow ; " she will rest better so." 
 
 "You did not send for the dress, then? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " No. Soon after you left me I took some 
 morphine. I had lately outgrown the influ 
 ence of even largely increased quantities, and, 
 indifferent to the risk of an overdose, I meant 
 to take enough to insure escape from pain. 
 Don't blame me too much, Mac. I have 
 promised never to touch the horrible drug 
 again. There was nobody to awake me 
 through the day, for every one was resting in 
 preparation for the evening. Even Mr. Pen- 
 hallow's movements in the next room failed 
 to arouse me.
 
 74 TALES 
 
 " When I at last recovered consciousness 
 my gown was damp with the dew from the 
 open window. I was so dizzy and confused 
 and so deathly sick that I did not realize 
 what I had done or what was going on below. 
 My only thought was that supper was ready 
 and that I must hurry to meet Mr. Penhallow. 
 
 "Time seemed to have turned backward 
 and I was the daughter whom the mother 
 was driving to her death. The horror of the 
 river to which she had at last succeeded in 
 forcing me was upon me, my name rang in 
 my ears, the phantasmagoria swam before 
 my eyes, and that was all I knew till I awoke 
 and found myself here." 
 
 By noon that day Penhallow Place was de 
 serted, nor was there ever again any one 
 bold enough to try the experiment of utiliz 
 ing it as a hotel. 
 
 It was in the following spring that I wrote 
 to Mrs. Penhallow about my marriage, and 
 how Harry had said that it was on that morn 
 ing in my old home when he had first thought 
 how pleasant it would be always to sit at the 
 table where I poured the tea. 
 
 In her reply she said that she was now in 
 perfect health. Inclosed, a wedding present 
 from her husband and herself, was the deed 
 of the little rocky farm.
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 
 I. 
 
 OLIVER DALLAS was coming over the 
 ledges at full speed, jumping where he 
 could not run, and now and again, at some 
 " drop " in the path, catching hold of an 
 overhanging branch and swinging himself 
 down with an agility that would have done 
 credit to an acrobat. He was singing at the 
 top of his voice not such a song as might 
 have been expected from a Professor of Com 
 parative Philology a chant, for instance, of 
 the chorus in " Antigone," as the play had 
 been rendered last winter under his advice 
 and supervision. 
 
 He was familiar with the Greek of Homer, 
 the Sanskrit of the Vedas, the Umbrian of 
 the Inguevin Inscriptions ; he could have 
 given the different forms of a word in San 
 skrit, Zend, Doric, Lithuanian, Old Slav, Latin, 
 Gothic, and Armen, and its root in the mother 
 Aryan. But by whom or at what era that 
 verse he was singing was composed, he was
 
 76 TALES 
 
 as ignorant as the gamin whose rendering 
 his trained memory had unconsciously jotted 
 down: 
 
 Oh, Brian O'Lynn and his wife and his mother, 
 
 All went over the bridge together; 
 
 The bridge broke down and they all fell in. 
 
 "There's ground at the bottom," says Brian O'Lynn! 
 
 Perhaps the bracing air had acted as an 
 intoxicant upon a system more than ordina 
 rily sensitive ; perhaps his youth was all at 
 once asserting itself after having been held in 
 abeyance for twenty-seven years, and, now 
 that reaction had set in, carried him outside 
 of the Oliver Dallas that the grave little world 
 of professors and students knew. It would 
 have failed to recognize even the outer man. 
 
 His coat showed the results of his scram 
 ble ; the brim of his hat was rent from the 
 crown, owing to the vigor with which it 
 had been pulled over his head on the 
 mountain-top ; his face was unkempt with 
 a three days' beard, and his inseparable eye 
 glasses were missing, having been caught in 
 an overhanging branch that broke the bow, 
 and he had no other pair nearer than the 
 hotel, to which his portmanteau had been 
 forwarded. 
 
 Some weeks ago, Dallas had been appointed 
 delegate from his university to a convention
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 77 
 
 of librarians. The honor was gratifying, but 
 the pleasure small ; for not only was the call 
 an interruption of his work, but the con 
 vention was to be held, at the height of the 
 season, at one of the large mountain hotels. 
 
 A hard student before he was out of petti 
 coats, Dallas had given throughout his boy 
 hood neither time nor thought to other 
 pleasures than those afforded by his studies. 
 At college the same course was pursued. A 
 new language, particularly one so old that 
 ordinary mortals did not even know of its 
 fossil remains, had more charms for him than 
 the various societies. While the men of his 
 class were exciting themselves over some 
 inter-collegiate boat race, he was poring over 
 treatises and thumbing lexicons ; the latest 
 views in linguistics had more interest for him 
 than the result of the last base-ball match. 
 While still in his teens, he was a correspond 
 ent of noted specialists in philology, and 
 had contributed articles on this subject to 
 various German learned journals. He had 
 lived so much, indeed, in the remote past that 
 his ignorance of the present was as complete 
 as might have been that of one of his beloved 
 Aryans. 
 
 Although keeping aloof from athletics as 
 an amusement, he had practised in the gym 
 nasium with painstaking care, had never
 
 78 TALES 
 
 allowed work to interfere with sleep, and was 
 as rigid in his diet as though under the most 
 scientific training ; so that he possessed the 
 first requisite of the highest intellectual vigor, 
 in being a good animal. His ignorance of 
 the world, while it left him without much that 
 was essential to a well-rounded development, 
 had combined with the absolute healthfulness 
 of his physical constitution to give him a 
 purity of nature that made him shrink from 
 all things mean or uncleanly with an intensity 
 at times verging upon the finical. 
 
 He had reached the end of the woods, and, 
 without warning, plunged headlong into a 
 gathering of people. For an instant he stood 
 dumbfounded. 
 
 Before him were several low, round tents. 
 Two or three wagons stood near; groups of 
 children were playing about; a youth was 
 bringing an armful of sticks to a fire from 
 which arose a smell of frying. A knot of 
 women, engaged in basket-weaving, ceased 
 their occupation to stare at the new-comer, 
 who had dropped from the sky with loud 
 words of ribald song ; while several men in 
 corduroy trowsers and red neckties turned 
 toward him a scrutiny in which, if there was 
 no welcome, there was yet nothing of enmity. 
 A black hound, which had been dozing by 
 the fire, gazed at him with the same expres-
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 79 
 
 sion of mingled suspicion and self-control that 
 was in the faces of his masters. 
 
 " Sarishan ! " called out the black-bearded 
 stranger. 
 
 The faces of the men lighted up ; the 
 women began to buzz among themselves ; the 
 hound's head sank again upon his outstretched 
 paws. One of the men stepped forward. 
 
 That his knowledge of Romany should ever 
 be put to so practical a use had never entered 
 into Oliver Dallas' most abstruse specula 
 tions. Interest in gypsies, as such, he had 
 none. They were vagabonds, beggars, 
 thieves ; worst of all, they were dirty. But 
 he could not be indifferent to the charms of a 
 language still spoken, which was as old as 
 Sanskrit, and probably older. There was 
 a fascination which only a student of languages 
 could understand in being able to study an 
 ancient Hindu dialect in the very heart of 
 modern civilization. Probably he not only 
 spoke a purer Romany than the man with 
 whom he was talking, but his vocabulary was 
 actually larger. 
 
 With the same exhilaration that had flung 
 him into the camp, he entered into the 
 situation. There was no need for him to 
 simulate; the rich physical life which had 
 so long waited upon the mental was all at 
 once dominant. He was a savage without
 
 8o TALES 
 
 the savagery, primeval man with a university 
 record. 
 
 They asked him whence he came, not as 
 people seeking credentials, but in friendli 
 ness and good-comradeship. He told them, 
 without thought of prevarication, " from over 
 there," with a jerk of his head towards the 
 mountain. He was conscious that he was re 
 ferring only to the last three days that the 
 years which had gone before were obliterated. 
 He accepted their offer of food he, who 
 had as great a horror of pork as any Jew 
 and enjoyed the meal with the zest given by 
 his long tramp. Afterward, while the men 
 smoked and the women joined in the talk 
 about the fire, he told stories and jested, 
 as one who had passed his life beneath the 
 "tan." 
 
 A girl sat by his side ; in the gathering 
 darkness and with his imperfect vision he 
 could not discern her features, even though 
 she had come gradually closer and he could 
 now put out his hand and touch her. He did 
 so, half unthinking, half because, in his keen 
 enjoyment, he longed for the sympathy which 
 comes with the magnetism of a hand-clasp. 
 It did not surprise him that soft, warm fingers 
 instantly closed upon his own. He was in 
 the state of a man in a dream, in which the 
 most extravagant situations and metamor-
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 81 
 
 phoses excite no wonder. So the twain sat 
 hand in hand, and the fire smouldered and 
 the stars were shining. 
 
 By and by, some one struck up a song and 
 the others joined in. It was such music as 
 Dallas had never before heard melody to 
 which he could have listened, like the monk 
 of Hildesheim, thinking that three minutes 
 had passed, to awake and find that a thousand 
 years had flown. Then the voice of the girl 
 by his side took up the strain. 
 
 He would once have interpreted the story 
 of the Lorelei as a wind-myth. There crossed 
 his mind now, however, a wondering doubt 
 whether the tale of the magic power of a 
 woman's voice was not simple truth. 
 
 Half bewildered, half frightened, he strove 
 to cast off the spell. 
 
 He must go. He must be far from there 
 on the morrow he scarcely knew what he 
 said, for the strains of the song were yet in 
 his ears he groped, blindly, for their mean 
 ing and the soft, clinging fingers had not 
 relaxed their hold. 
 
 Before he knew it, impelled by an irresisti 
 ble power partly, it may be, the result of 
 the intoxication of his senses, partly as the 
 culmination of that life-long reaction he 
 whispered : 
 
 " Miri pireniy me kamava tut ! " 
 
 6
 
 82 TALES 
 
 He spoke as the first of the race might have 
 done, unfettered by the rules and traditions 
 of society ; free to follow the call of his own 
 nature ; obeying blindly its impulse, unknow 
 ing, unasking, and uncaring whence it came 
 or whither it would lead. He heard, still as 
 in a dream, soft Romany words, with the 
 magic of the song lingering in their cadences : 
 
 " Tu shan miro jivaben, me fvel paller tute 
 paller tute sarasapardel puo te pani /" 
 
 II. 
 
 DALLAS awoke the next morning in his 
 hotel chamber with the words spoken in reply 
 to his own " My darling, I love you ! " 
 still ringing in his ears : 
 
 " / will follow you wherever you go, over 
 land and sea, unto the uttermost ends of the 
 world!" 
 
 Partly from his lifelong habit of weighing 
 and balancing language, of giving to every 
 word its exact value, as well as because he 
 had never spoken trifling words to a woman, 
 he felt as though he had pledged his soul to 
 some Mara, like the knight in the monkish 
 legend. 
 
 The gypsy girl had spoken those words as 
 though in earnest ; and a whimsical thought
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 83 
 
 came to Dallas, from which he could not free 
 himself, that she would reappear in pursu 
 ance of her vow at the very crisis of his life, 
 and to his own undoing. 
 
 However, uncomfortable as the recollection 
 made him, he could console himself with the 
 thought that the convention would last only 
 a few days, when he would depart by the 
 next train for home and work, from out whose 
 harborage he would never again venture. 
 
 He finished shaving and betook himself to 
 the dining-room. 
 
 The breakfast gong had sounded some time 
 before, but the apartment was still empty. 
 
 " They had a big hop here last night," 
 said the waitress in an explanatory tone, as 
 she led the way to his table. " It was after 
 two o'clock when the folks went to bed, and I 
 s'pose they're sleepy this morning." 
 
 Dallas had a vague recollection of a stair 
 case with balusters wreathed with golden-rod, 
 and of the sound of music issuing from some 
 apartment that he had passed with hastened 
 steps ; but he supposed it was the usual state 
 of things in a summer hotel, to be patiently 
 endured unto the time of deliverance. 
 
 He looked about him. Garlands of ever 
 green were suspended across the ceiling, 
 draped on the windows and drooped from the 
 chandeliers ; the one over his head, especially
 
 84 TALES 
 
 elaborate with great bunches of everlastings 
 amongst the greenery, looked like a marriage- 
 bell. Groves of young spruce were ranged 
 along the walls. A litter of broken branches 
 and pine needles had been swept aside and lay 
 in fragrant heaps, to be removed at a more 
 convenient season, and some of the curtains 
 were still drawn. 
 
 The unreal appearance of a room in the 
 morning light, after a festivity, added to the 
 sense of strangeness that already burdened 
 Dallas, and made him feel as though he 
 was in an Arabian Night's tale, in which he 
 was the only living person in an enchanted 
 palace. 
 
 The door at the end of the hall opened. 
 A girl was walking down the room with a 
 firmness of tread and directness of purpose 
 that was quite unlike the wobbly gait of the 
 country maiden who had attended to his 
 wants. 
 
 With a feeling akin to horror, he perceived 
 that she was advancing toward the table where 
 he sat a feeling which reached its climax 
 when the new-comer took a seat directly 
 opposite him. 
 
 *' Good morning, Mr. Dallas," said she. 
 " You do not remember me? " as the young 
 man failed to return the greeting. 
 
 " I do not," he made answer promptly.
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 85 
 
 There was no intentional discourtesy in 
 the disclaimer. Talleyrand to the contrary, 
 language was given to man to express his 
 thoughts. The girl laughed. 
 
 " Your tone says, ' Present your creden 
 tials ! ' I met you last winter at a rehearsal 
 of ' Antigone,' in the chorus of which I took 
 a distinguished part." 
 
 Dallas looked at her through his gold- 
 bowed spectacles much as he would have 
 scanned a word of whose root he was doubt 
 ful. His recollection of the Greek chorus 
 was merely of a medley of airy, iris-hued 
 draperies, in which personality bore no part. 
 The etymology of the young woman opposite 
 was not Greek. Her nose was irregular, her 
 face was browned by the August sun, her 
 light-brown hair was twisted into an unclassi- 
 cal knot on the top of her head ; her gown, 
 too, a trim, dark-blue skirt and jacket 
 braided with gold, was quite unlike the 
 flowing draperies of a Greek maiden. 
 
 She was returning his scrutiny with a cer 
 tain covert amusement that was not lost upon 
 its object ; she had certainly the advantage in 
 knowing something of him. He felt that the 
 situation, beneath the marriage-bell, too, was 
 ridiculously connubial. 
 
 Were they the only two people awake in 
 the house? Would the waitress never re-
 
 86 TALES 
 
 turn? In his embarrassment he was spelling 
 out, letter by letter, the word " Terpsichore," 
 printed in evergreens at the end of the hall. 
 
 "It should be who was the Muse of 
 Tragedy? oh, yes, Melpomene," said his 
 neighbor, with mock sympathy. " You make 
 me feel so delightfully classical, Mr. Dallas. 
 De gustibus non est disputandum. E pluri- 
 bus unum. God bless our home ! Facilis 
 descensus Averno with especial reference to 
 our waitress. A week ago she attended to our 
 wants fairly well. Crimps, a bang, German 
 cologne, a reckless use of the opprobrious 
 epithet ' lady,' have been the rapid stages of 
 her descent. A Barmecide feast, is it not? 
 Let me introduce our neighbors by whom 
 Love may be conjugated. This woman by my 
 side is Love past. Love will henceforth be 
 symbolized to my mind as a figure enveloped 
 in a gray shawl and with a flannel compress 
 around its throat. Love, instead of breaking 
 Mrs. Hopkins' heart, has affected her larynx. 
 On your right is Love present, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Poole, a young bridal pair. Conversely to 
 Hamerton's theory, that ' the mental prince 
 should marry the mental princess,' the men 
 tal pauper has married the mental pauperess. 
 Mr. Poole is teaching his bride geography 
 and English history; but when he alluded 
 the other morning to Marblehead's being on
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 87 
 
 the Quincy branch, the shades of Radcliffe 
 compelled me to refute the heresy. Conse 
 quently I am looked upon as one who scoffs 
 at true love. Mr. and Mrs. Sillars, on your 
 other side, present the picture of the sunny 
 future. With her, love has developed into 
 dyspepsia; with him, into a liver trouble. 
 She spends her time iji a haircloth rocking- 
 chair in a corner of the sunless parlor, knit 
 ting bed-socks. He is devoting the summer 
 to making a scrap-book of the criminal cases 
 in the newspapers in which husband and wife 
 figure. I suspect that one reason why love 
 has waned in his case is that he reads poetry 
 aloud whenever two or three are gathered to 
 gether; and as the gypsies say, one must 
 endure the chatter and say nothing " 
 
 She cut herself short, for several other per 
 sons had entered the dining-room and were 
 too near to make confidences longer safe. 
 
 !" Strong tea, fried ham, hot biscuit, dough 
 nuts, griddle-cakes and sirup will some 
 body tell me why some people have every 
 thing in this world and I have not even 
 health?" come in lugubrious tones from 
 Dallas' left. 
 
 " Gladstone, angel-pie," said a voice on the 
 other side. " His first name is ' Premier.' " 
 
 Dallas looked across the table to meet his 
 neighbor's eyes, with the malicious twinkle
 
 88 TALES 
 
 in their brown depths ; and the look seemed 
 to seal between them a sort of understanding, 
 an undefinable feeling of good-fellowship. 
 
 A few hours later, Dallas attended the first 
 meeting of the convention. As he stepped 
 out on the piazza, still in grave discussion 
 with one of his confreres on the copyright 
 struggle in Congress, his ear caught words 
 from a group of girls near by. 
 
 " The gypsies have gone ! " one of them 
 was saying. 
 
 " Gone ! " came a chorus of dismay from 
 the others. 
 
 " There is not a trace of them but the ashes 
 of their fire." 
 
 There was an instant's hush, for Dallas had 
 broken off his sentence midway and was evi 
 dently listening intently. Then, becoming 
 conscious of his apparent rudeness, and 
 recognizing his companion of the breakfast- 
 table as one of the group, he bowed gravely 
 and resumed his conversation. But it was 
 no longer of international copyright that he 
 was thinking. 
 
 The others had fallen away and he vent 
 ured near. 
 
 "The gypsies have been here?" he said 
 interrogatively. 
 
 " An old woman came to the house yester 
 day to sell baskets," explained his morning's
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 89 
 
 acquaintance, " and we planned to visit the 
 camp this afternoon and have our fortunes 
 told." She laid down her book, a flimsy, 
 paper-covered volume, at which, because he 
 did not know exactly what to say next, Dallas 
 glanced, and read, besides the title, the name, 
 in a free, bold handwriting, " Margaret Beach." 
 
 " Not that I believe in the gypsy method," 
 pursued Miss Beach, gravely. "I insist upon 
 my fortune being told according to the latest 
 scientific light. None but Heron-Allen may 
 look at my palm. Shall I read the future for 
 you, Mr. Dallas?" 
 
 The tips of her fingers touched, daintily, 
 his own. What was there in the contact 
 that nearly made him reel? 
 
 He was unused to the touch of a wom 
 an's hand, or did the soft fingers bring back 
 the moment when the ashes had been fire ? 
 For again those haunting, maddening words 
 rang in his brain : 
 
 " / will follow you wherever you go, over 
 land and sea, unto the ttttermost ends of the 
 world /" 
 
 Miss Beach was knitting her pretty, fair 
 brows in profound study. Presently she 
 spoke : 
 
 " The past is : You have played tennis a 
 great deal. The future is : You are going to 
 play, at once, with me."
 
 90 TALES 
 
 III. 
 
 IN the background of Dallas' life, where 
 with other men had been youth, there was a 
 figure lying on a sofa, with a novel in its 
 hand, calling to everybody in weak, queru 
 lous tones, to do its bidding. Having seen 
 how a nerve-vampire may suck the mental 
 life out of a strong man, marriage meant to 
 him merely exposure to interference, inter 
 ruption, and ignorant criticism. 
 
 But here was a woman who was rejoicing 
 in perfect health, yet who wore becoming 
 gowns ; who liked to dance ; who read 
 " Rudyard Kipling," whoever he might be, 
 yet who could run without losing breath, 
 and thought nothing of walking ten miles ; 
 who was not ignorant of Colebrook, Grimm, 
 and Burnouf; who had a healthy appetite, 
 and a waist that met the masculine approval, 
 yet whose voice was even and controlled, and 
 whose manners were gentle ; who was at home 
 in Egyptology, and still had an opinion of her 
 own as to the merits of home-made yeast. 
 
 She aroused his curiosity as something 
 new in his experience, then held his interest 
 as the suggestion of future developments of 
 the race, till, before he realized it, he was
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 91 
 
 talking to her as he had never talked to the 
 most congenial of his masculine associates, 
 under the stimulus of the intellectual com 
 radeship of the woman that the last few 
 lustrums have developed. The convention 
 at an end, he made no secret to himself of 
 the attraction which held him back from 
 home and his cherished studies. 
 
 With it all, he could not free himself from 
 a sense of moral incubus; and more than 
 once he awoke from a hideous dream he 
 to whom a nightmare had been hitherto 
 unknown in which a gigantic Mara was 
 pursuing him wherever he went, over land 
 and sea, unto the uttermost ends of the 
 world, while a voice that sounded like his 
 own was repeating again and again : 
 
 " Miri pireni, me kamava tut!" 
 
 How she would scorn him if she knew 
 she, who from the very beginning of their 
 acquaintance had lost no opportunity of 
 scoffing at love ! 
 
 And there was no doubt but that love was 
 fast becoming obsolete. Admirable as a 
 provisional arrangement for the continuance 
 of the race, as the growth and demands of 
 the intellectual life increased, " the silly, 
 senseless, and savage element " dwelt upon 
 by Max Muller was becoming happily elimi 
 nated from the social arrangement no less
 
 92 TALES 
 
 than from religion. In the future, natural 
 selection would mean that " the mental prince 
 would marry the mental princess." 
 
 Were confirmation needful of his theory, 
 how could that be worthy whose lees, as with 
 Mrs. Hopkins, had soured life, making her 
 every utterance censorious? Could there 
 be aught ennobling in a feeling which had 
 drawn together two such people as Mr. and 
 Mrs. Poole? Upon such a foundation, the 
 marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Sillars had re 
 sulted in mutual misery. Moreover, when 
 he asked Miss Beach to marry him, no 
 moonlit balcony, with its attendant influ 
 enza and rheumatism, should be the scene 
 of a proposal dictated by healthy reason, 
 but the hotel parlor, in broad daylight, after 
 dinner. 
 
 It was that evening that Miss Beach was 
 asked to sing. She complied, with Bour- 
 dillon's verses : 
 
 The night has a thousand eyes 
 
 And the day but one; 
 Yet the light of the bright world dies 
 
 With the dying sun. 
 
 The mind has a thousand eyes 
 
 And the heart but one; 
 Yet the light of a whole life dies 
 
 When love is done.
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 93 
 
 Beyond criticism in technique the render 
 ing was without feeling or expression. 
 
 " He sang only that one song," commented 
 Miss Beach as she arose, " and the reason 
 was that he was struck dumb afterward, like 
 Ananias." 
 
 Mr. Sillars, perhaps impelled by a morbid 
 desire to make others as unhappy as himself, 
 had begun to read "Tarn o' Shanter," in a 
 droning, mouthing utterance, with the evident 
 intention of keeping on to the bitter end. 
 Mrs. Sillars gathered up her knitting and 
 fled. Mrs. Hopkins drew her shawl more 
 closely about her, and, murmuring something 
 about "my poor throat," glided from the 
 room. Mr. and Mrs. Poole remembered, 
 simultaneously, that they had a letter to 
 write. Miss Beach suggested that the air on 
 the piazza, was fresher than in the parlor, 
 and Mr. Dallas agreed with her. 
 
 He noticed how pretty his companion looked 
 in the moonlight, with a satisfaction which 
 sprang entirely from self-complacency that 
 his pulse was beating as calmly as ever. 
 They sat in silence for some minutes ; and 
 that, too, pleased Dallas, because intellectual 
 companionship does not demand the incessant 
 chatter requisite to the contentment of the 
 young bridal pair. After all, there might 
 be no better opportunity than the present.
 
 94 TALES 
 
 Without unnecessary circumlocution or fool 
 ish hesitation, he began : 
 
 " I doubt if there is such a thing as love 
 amongst the educated classes. As Spencer 
 suggests of remorse, I am convinced that 
 it figures merely in novels or upon the 
 stage." 
 
 " I agree with you," answered Miss Beach, 
 promptly. 
 
 " A marriage based upon a calm con 
 sideration and comparison of the characters 
 and tastes of the parties concerned, is the 
 only one to be recognized after man has 
 outgrown the instincts he shares with the 
 animals." 
 
 " You are quite right," returned his com 
 panion calmly. 
 
 " And so you will marry me? " 
 
 The children were playing " Blind-man's- 
 buff" in a room near by; they were drawing 
 lots for " Blind-man " by means of a familiar 
 nonsense verse. With an interest painful in its 
 intensity, Dallas listened to the meaningless 
 jingle, awaiting breathlessly some unknown 
 but terrible issue when that last syllable 
 should have fallen upon him. 
 
 " Stingle 'em stangle 'em buck ! " came 
 in a crescendo of childish voices. 
 
 " No ! " almost shrieked Miss Beach. 
 
 Before he could find voice, her hand had
 
 A MENTAL PRINCESS 95 
 
 spasmodically grasped his own, and she de 
 manded, fiercely: 
 
 " Do you hear that?" 
 
 The children had begun the chant again : 
 
 One-eri two-eri ekkeri an 
 Fillisi follasy Nicolas jan 
 
 Queebee quabee Irishman, 
 Stingle 'em stangle 'em buck ! 
 
 " Do you know what it means? " 
 " They are Romany words, curiously pre 
 served, almost uncorrupted, in children's 
 games," explained Dallas, professional in 
 stincts conquering. " They mean 
 
 First second here you begin 
 
 Castle gloves you don't play go on " 
 
 " I don't care what they mean," interrupted 
 his companion wildly, " except that they are 
 gypsy ! People talk about the power of drink 
 or opium what is it, compared to the spell 
 of a gypsy word ! I don't know how or when 
 it began. I suppose there must be gypsy 
 blood in my veins, too far back to be traced. 
 My old nurse used to explain it otherwise. 
 But atavism or ' a little divil inside o' me ' 
 it is there ! I gave my pennies, before I 
 could talk plain, to an old scissors-grinder, to 
 teach me Romany. The sound of a gypsy 
 word, the sight of a gypsy face, sets my blood
 
 96 TALES 
 
 on fire. What did I care for the hop of the 
 season if I could sit for an hour by a gypsy 
 camp-fire ! 
 
 " It was then he came. I sang to him. 
 Not as I sang to-night, but so that he under 
 stood and answered, not in cold, measured 
 terms of hateful reason, but in words that 
 have rung in my ears, day and night, ever 
 since. 
 
 " I shall never marry. I dare not ! For 
 if he should speak those words again I should 
 leave all friends, home, husband and 
 follow him wherever he went, over land and 
 sea, unto the uttermost ends of the world ! " 
 
 His hand had closed on hers in a clasp 
 that may, of itself, have brought recollection; 
 and he whispered : 
 
 " Miri pireni, me kamava tut ! "
 
 A RETURN TO NATURE 
 
 " T3 EV. AUGUSTINE ST. GREGORY, Miss 
 XvHelen Mackintosh. Married " 
 " Tear up the wedding-cards ! " interrupted 
 Pris Armstrong. " It was infatuation fa 
 naticism. How could a Boston girl, brought 
 up with every advantage of education and 
 association, marry a full-blooded Sioux ! I 
 went to the wedding under protest; as 
 Helen's nearest friend, I sat there under 
 protest; and it required all my self-control 
 to refrain from shrieking aloud at the words : 
 ' If any man can show just cause why they 
 should not lawfully be joined together ' " 
 " You talk as though he had just arrived 
 from the plains, in wampum and war-paint," 
 returned Annie Chesley, indignantly. " I 
 met him at Mrs. Cotting's reception, and 
 thought him perfectly fascinating. He has the 
 loveliest manners so gentle and subdued, 
 and, with his soulful dark eyes and melan 
 choly face, he reminded me of Edwin Booth 
 in 'The Iron Chest.' Such an interesting 
 
 7
 
 98 TALES 
 
 history as he has, too ! He lost his father at 
 the battle of the Little Big Horn, and after 
 the flight of Sitting Bull and his men into 
 Canada, the poor little fellow was found by a 
 missionary and sent to Hampton. Later, by 
 means of an old lady's bequest, he was 
 educated for the ministry, preparatory to 
 going as missionary to his own people. If 
 you had heard him speak, the last Sunday in 
 Advent, when the collection was taken for the 
 Domestic Missions, you would realize what 
 religion has done in transforming a savage 
 into a Christian gentleman and clergyman." 
 " Helen was taught from babyhood to save 
 her pennies for the Domestic Missions," said 
 Pris, slowly. " In Lent her childish sacri 
 fices were for the benefit of some Indian 
 school. Her cast-off toys were sent to 
 Hampton ; her Sunday-school class supported 
 an Indian there. Later she attended all the 
 meetings for the benefit of the Indians, has 
 been an active member of the Dakota League, 
 and devoted all her charitable energies 
 and a Boston girl must have some outlet for 
 her inborn spirit of philanthropy as impera 
 tively as for her love of music, books, and 
 art to collecting funds and packing barrels 
 of clothing for the Indians. As she stood by 
 the altar, it seemed the culmination of a 
 lifelong fad, an earnest and religious one,
 
 A RETURN TO NATURE 99 
 
 if you will, but still merely a fad, in which 
 love bore a minor, if not a doubtful, part. 
 There was a delay in getting to the carriage, 
 and I waited on the curbstone. No, not to 
 throw rice, but but to see Helen once 
 more. Captain Carter, Helen's cousin, he 
 was best man, closed the carriage door, 
 with a gay good-by. He stood with uncov 
 ered head in the fog and drizzle, and I saw 
 the look upon his face." 
 
 " They say he has always been in love with 
 Helen." 
 
 " It was not that. Insight gave foresight, 
 and on the pavement in Copley square he 
 saw the future, somewhere on the Western 
 plains." 
 
 "You are tired, August?" 
 
 Helen St. Gregory arose from the piano, 
 the one article of luxury she had permitted 
 herself, and, leaning over the back of her 
 husband's chair, played with his hair. It 
 had been allowed to grow somewhat long in 
 the last few weeks. 
 
 He had just returned from a visit to a 
 settlement a few miles distant, consisting of 
 a few wretched, scattered huts. His hand 
 sought his throat and loosened the stiff 
 clerical bands with an impatience that seemed 
 uncontrollable.
 
 ioo TALES 
 
 " It is stifling here," he said ; " the air of a 
 room makes me cough." 
 
 " I will open the window." 
 
 " Open both windows ! " 
 
 " I cannot," returned Helen, with some 
 surprise at his imperious tone. " The other 
 window is sealed hermetically with papier- 
 mache manufactured out of soaked news 
 papers, after Frank Carter's recipe." 
 
 Her husband strode across the room, and 
 with one blow of his clenched fist broke away 
 the lower part of the sash. 
 
 " August ! How could you Oh, your 
 hand is bleeding ! " reproach changing to 
 commiseration. 
 
 She caught up a web of soft linen upon 
 the work-table. 
 
 " It is nothing," said her husband almost 
 haughtily, drawing himself so quickly away 
 that the linen fell beneath his foot. 
 
 The next moment there was an exclama 
 tion from both, for it was the surplice, with 
 the circle-emblem of immortality embroid 
 ered upon its front, that lay there, blood 
 stained and trampled. 
 
 He sank into the chair again, and she, who 
 had learned in the last few months that there 
 were times when it was best to leave him un 
 disturbed, silently closed the shutters outside 
 the broken window and pinned closely over
 
 A RETURN TO NATURE 101 
 
 it the heavy curtains of Mexican blankets. 
 The room was both sitting-room and study. 
 In the corner a prie-dieu, with a threadbare 
 cushion, testified to the length and frequency 
 of his devotions. 
 
 Presently Helen looked anxiously up from 
 the altar-cloth she was embroidering. 
 
 " I wish you would not watch me in that 
 covert manner," said her husband, with new 
 irritability. 
 
 He was tired, she thought, and her 
 woman's heart chid her for a moment of 
 strange and chilled misgiving. It was a 
 long, cold walk to the settlement, and the 
 people there were the most degraded of his 
 pastoral charge. They consisted only of old 
 men, women, and children; the young men 
 were out hunting a euphemism for having 
 joined certain hostile tribes in the North 
 west. 
 
 " I have questioned lately, Helen," he 
 began presently, " whether I have not, after 
 all, mistaken my vocation. The fire has 
 died out of my utterances ; my prayers no 
 longer ascend as on wings of light, but fall 
 crushingly back upon my heart. The mean 
 ing has gone out of the Holy Scripture ; its 
 words are as ' a tale told by an idiot, full of 
 sound and fury, signifying nothing.' " 
 
 She spoke gentle, reassuring words, but
 
 102 TALES 
 
 the strange foreboding returned, and bided in 
 her heart. Long after she had gone to bed, 
 he was kneeling at the prie-dieu. 
 
 In the days that followed, she noticed that 
 he was unusually silent; that the early 
 services, the prayers, and fastings became 
 more frequent the last so rigorous that 
 she begged him to have care lest his health 
 suffer. 
 
 " We are commanded," he replied sol 
 emnly, " to ' crucify the old man and utterly 
 abolish the whole body of sin.' " 
 
 He went about his work like a man in a 
 dream. The melancholy that had always 
 characterized him became moodiness, a 
 taciturnity that his wife learned was best 
 left unquestioned. His favorite subjects of 
 conversation had formerly related to his 
 work ; now he never alluded to it. His texts 
 had been chosen from the New Testament, 
 that upon which he had most frequently 
 dwelt being, " For their sakes I sanctify my 
 self, that they also may be sanctified through 
 the truth." Now his sermons were drawn 
 from the Old Testament, and particularly 
 from those accounts that dwelt upon ven 
 geance and bloodshed. When he read the 
 lesson telling of the killing of Sisera, there 
 was a repressed force in his utterance, an 
 intensity of dramatic action in the gestures of
 
 A RETURN TO NATURE 103 
 
 his slender hand and flexible wrist, that 
 brought the scene with awful vividness before 
 his listeners. 
 
 " She smote the nail into his temples 
 for he was fast asleep and weary. So he 
 died." His personality was merged into that 
 of Jael, and exaltation was exultation over the 
 treacherous and savage deed. 
 
 His manner in speaking of his own people 
 had formerly been tinged with sadness. 
 Was it a wild fancy of his wife's that it now 
 held a subtle pride? A distinction, too, had 
 evidently grown up in his mind between 
 " these people " the reclaimed sheep of his 
 flock and those amongst whom his child 
 hood had been passed. 
 
 His walks over the plain became more 
 frequent. Helen had supposed their object 
 was the settlement, till an allusion to his work 
 there undeceived her. " I have not been 
 there. I walked twenty, thirty miles over the 
 plain," he said, with an excitement that all 
 her efforts at restraint could not ignore. 
 
 " Listen ! " and the words that followed 
 were strange to Helen. " It is the tongue of 
 my fathers," went on her husband, with 
 solemn pride. " Upon the vast empty plain 
 there was a sound from heaven as of a 
 mighty rushing wind, and even as the 
 tongues were given to the disciples at the
 
 104 TALES 
 
 day of Pentecost was the language of the 
 warriors given back to me. With such 
 words did my father speak when he told of 
 his deeds at the council fire. My father was 
 a great brave. He did not live amongst the 
 women and children. He was not a squaw- 
 man. He was Black Kettle ! " 
 
 Bewildered at this strange outburst, Helen 
 called beseechingly to her husband. He 
 made no reply. It was morning when he 
 arose from the prie-dieu. 
 
 For the next few days, except for an 
 almost unbroken silence, he seemed more 
 like his former self. Late one afternoon, in 
 his absence, word was brought to Helen that 
 a woman had been confined in the settlement, 
 and was dying for lack of proper care, food, 
 and clothing. The circumstances of the case 
 appealed to her with peculiar force. Filling 
 a basket with food, and hastily selecting such 
 articles as seemed most needful, she set out 
 on her lonely walk. 
 
 The door of the hut was ajar. Its one 
 room was empty. In her charitable visiting 
 in Boston a similar experience had often 
 been hers, and now, as then, an involuntary 
 vexation arose at having been made the 
 dupe of her sympathies. She made her way 
 to the next hut, but, to her surprise, it, too, 
 was empty. She walked on, thinking to
 
 A RETURN TO NATURE 105 
 
 find some one to question, but the search was 
 vain. The village was deserted ! 
 
 The last hut stood on the brow of an 
 incline. In the hollow beyond was a strange 
 sight. 
 
 Shrinking back into the shadow of the hut, 
 petrified with horror, she stood watching a 
 circle of savage figures, men and women 
 alternating, holding one another by the hand, 
 revolving slowly around a large tree. A 
 dirge-like chant filled the air, as round and 
 round the dancers went, in the same direction, 
 with eyes closed and heads bent toward the 
 ground. There were young men in the 
 circle. Had they returned, then, from their 
 "hunting expedition"? 
 
 Chained to the spot by the mystic spell of 
 the " ghost-dance," her own body swayed to 
 and fro in unison with the dancers. 
 
 One figure seemed to exercise a particular 
 fascination over her. It was that of a young 
 brave, naked to the hips, and with streaks of 
 red and yellow paint across his breast. 
 Darkness had long ago fallen, and fires were 
 gleaming in the hollow, but still Helen 
 watched, spellbound. One after another of 
 the dancers fell forward on his face in a kind 
 of swoon, but the circle was instantly 
 re-formed. The young brave who had held 
 her gaze was prostrate at last.
 
 io6 TALES 
 
 Suddenly he leaped to his feet. 
 
 " I have seen the Great Father," he cried, 
 " and he will not talk to me because I have 
 married a white woman ! " 
 
 It was the voice of her husband ! 
 
 Half-frozen, blinded, and staggering, Helen 
 reached her own door at last. She must 
 have wandered many times from the path, 
 for the cold, gray morning light was break 
 ing. She dropped, from force of habit, into 
 the chair by the work-table. She must darn 
 those socks of August's. It was the morning 
 for early service. She took up a little illumi 
 nated book of devotions in which it was her 
 daily habit to read. Was she going mad? 
 The words were revolving in a circle over the 
 page. A capital A, in scarlet and gold, bore 
 a fantastic resemblance to the paint-bedizened 
 figure of the dance. 
 
 There was a sound without. The door 
 was pushed open and a naked savage strode 
 into the room. She saw his purpose. 
 
 " August ! For the sake of our unborn 
 babe ! " 
 
 What followed may not be told.
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 
 
 WHAT I am about to relate is no mere 
 ghost story would to God it were ! 
 No breath of icy air, chilling my very marrow, 
 no footfall, as of " Silence, step by step in 
 creased," no rustle of impalpable garments, 
 has it ever been my fate to know. To see or 
 hear, whatever of the unimaginable might be 
 revealed, would be freedom. 
 
 It may have chanced that alone at mid 
 night, after hours of concentrated toil, you 
 are leaving the darkened room, when you 
 have been stricken with a sudden unreason 
 ing horror of something, you know not what, 
 that was striving to grasp you from out the 
 emptiness behind. On waking from deep 
 sleep there has loomed before your straining 
 eyes a horrible, impalpable shape that yet was 
 no shape, but the very darkness endowed 
 with a malignant life. Of something that 
 nature, increased indefinite fold, is the Pres 
 ence that has made existence to me a curse. 
 Since the days of our ancestor, the second
 
 io8 TALES 
 
 governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 
 our family had followed one profession, 
 that of physician. When the era of specialty 
 dawned, my grandfather adopted that of 
 Neurology ; my father made the same choice ; 
 and, from my earliest recollections, it was 
 understood that I was to follow in their foot 
 steps. After taking my Harvard degree, I 
 studied for several years at Edinburgh and in 
 Germany, and returned to Boston to step into 
 a lofty and assured position in my chosen 
 calling. Besides assisting my father in his 
 numerous private cases, he deferred to me 
 if our diagnoses conflicted, I was a member 
 of the Visiting Board of two asylums for the 
 insane, was appointed lecturer on Neurology 
 at the Medical School, and published a book, 
 " Responsibility in Mental Disease," that was 
 quoted by those who were themselves author 
 ities. 
 
 While I supposed that the world held 
 nothing for me but my profession, I met 
 Helena Kay. There may have been girls that 
 were prettier, more accomplished, more at 
 tractive in the general sense, but none whom 
 I had ever met fulfilled my ideal of woman 
 hood till I knew Helena. Neither her nature 
 nor mine was of the kind that " falls " in 
 love, but one day we awoke to the full and 
 blissful assurance that we loved each other
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 109 
 
 as man and wife should love. Congratula 
 tions poured upon us ; we were of the same 
 rank in life, and people said we " fitted." 
 My father's beatitude as he welcomed his 
 " daughter " was complete. 
 
 To be worthy of Helena I worked harder 
 than ever to win a loftier name, a wider fame, 
 in my calling. In the preparation of an ex 
 tended work on the " Hallucinations of In 
 sanity," it became desirable to consult several 
 eminent men in England, and to visit some 
 of the hospitals for the insane on the Conti 
 nent. Accordingly, I decided to spend the 
 ensuing months abroad, returning immedi 
 ately before the third of October our wed 
 ding day. In September, after a season of 
 intense mental activity, I found myself in 
 London. On the evening of the tenth, Sir 
 James Gordon, the eminent surgeon, gave a 
 farewell dinner in my honor. Nothing of an 
 exciting nature had occurred during the day. 
 The conversation at the table was upon com 
 monplace topics. At no time was it my 
 habit to exceed one glass of wine for diem, 
 and that night a single sip of sherry was all 
 that had passed my lips. The dinner had 
 reached saddle of mutton when suddenly I 
 became aware of the awful Presence that will 
 never leave me this side the grave. 
 
 Starting from my chair, I glanced fearfully
 
 no TALES 
 
 over my shoulder. With a face frozen with 
 horror, I looked into every corner of the bril 
 liantly lighted room. Instinctively I grasped 
 the human hand of my neighbor; the contact 
 revealed mine cold as ice. Twice, thrice, I 
 tried to speak, but my lips were stricken with 
 dumbness. 
 
 The buzz of conversation had suddenly 
 ceased, and every one at the table was staring 
 at me. 
 
 "For God's sake, Dudley, what has hap 
 pened? " cried my host. 
 
 I seized the decanter, poured out and drank, 
 in rapid succession, three, four glasses of 
 sherry, and looked around on the circle of 
 anxious, mystified faces like one awakening 
 from a swoon. Solicitations were poured 
 forth, questions heaped upon me, but, with 
 pallid face and icy hands, I kept my secret, 
 as I have guarded it from that hour to this. 
 Who, indeed, of all the world, could under 
 stand the horror that had befallen me? 
 Dinner was soon at an end. Disguise it as 
 they would, not a man but what was anxious 
 to flee my presence. 
 
 The tenth of September ! Then was drawn 
 the dividing line between me and humanity. 
 
 It was only in the first days of my posses 
 sion that I attempted to analyze the nature 
 of that mysterious Presence ; afterwards, I
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER in 
 
 might as well have attempted to analyze my 
 own soul. It seemed to me conceivable that 
 with the cumulative effect of generations 
 devoted to one line of thought, and that 
 dealing almost exclusively with mental con 
 ditions, increased possibly in my own case 
 by some special individual aptitude, my 
 intellectual faculties had outstripped their 
 proper balance with the physical, till a state 
 was reached in which the mental perceptions 
 acted without the aid or intervention of the 
 bodily senses ; that the inward vision, thus 
 magnified, had obtained cognizance of some 
 Reality in the psychical world that was none 
 the less real, because not reducible to for 
 mulae. Could Coleridge have had a similar 
 experience and so made it the animus of the 
 Ancient Mariner, shunned by all men? What 
 mysteries had been unveiled to Keats before 
 he wrote his terrible "Lamia"? 
 
 Concomitant with Its presence, I was aware 
 of what I can only describe as a kind of 
 double consciousness. One was that of my 
 real self, whose keynote was Helena; the 
 other part of this dual nature was under some 
 dominant influence that controlled not only 
 my acts, but my very thoughts and passions. 
 A sensation somewhat akin to this strange 
 mental state occasionally occurs in sleep, 
 when, all moral feeling at an end, one com-
 
 U2 TALES 
 
 mits the most atrocious crimes with indiffer 
 ence, yet with the cognizance, underlying 
 subconsciousness, that these horrors are a 
 dream from which presently he will awake 
 and all will be well. But, fettered as in a 
 nightmare, I knew that when I awoke I 
 should find that the acts and penalties of my 
 dream were real. 
 
 Leaving London without farewells, I 
 hastened to Liverpool, where I was unknown, 
 and for three days and nights struggled in 
 the spiritual torment of Laocoon ; but the 
 coils grew ever closer and tighter, and my 
 power of resistance weakened hourly. I had 
 gone early on board the boat, and stood by 
 the rail on the upper deck moodily watching 
 the stream of people pass over the gangway, 
 when my glance fell upon a young girl ; she 
 was chatting and laughing with a group of 
 acquaintances, whose hands were filled with 
 farewell tributes of flowers and boxes of bon 
 bons. There was nothing in her appearance 
 to which positive exception could be taken ; 
 only, to a critical eye, the impression it con 
 veyed was that of one just below the social 
 line ; scarcely vulgar not high-bred. 
 
 Attracted by my fervent gaze, she glanced 
 upward and our eyes met. Eagerly I awaited 
 her reappearance on deck ; as she came in 
 sight, my heart beat madly, and, forgetting
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 113 
 
 home, Helena, the third of October, I 
 started forward, intent on I know not what. 
 At that moment a young man belonging to 
 the travelling party, who was apparently act 
 ing as the girl's special escort, placed his 
 hand upon her arm, and the familiarity mad 
 dened me with what I dared not call jealousy. 
 At that moment a lady near me caught a 
 glimpse of my face, and, with an involuntary 
 exclamation, hurried from my neighborhood, 
 casting an affrighted backward glance. 
 
 That night, sleeping or waking, a pink and 
 white face was ever before me. I did not 
 seek to disguise from myself the motive that 
 took me early on deck the next morning. 
 Presently she the girl for whom I waited 
 appeared, and passed me with a smile that 
 was easy to interpret. My unreproved greet 
 ing was followed by a light, flattering speech, 
 at which she dimpled bewitchingly ; then, 
 with studied but palpable hesitation, she 
 accepted my invitation to walk the deck, and 
 presently acceded to a petition to be allowed 
 to place her chair and arrange her rugs. The 
 morning passed in the secluded corner. 
 
 Every moment of the ensuing days I was 
 at her side. The passengers smiled signifi 
 cantly at our mutual absorption, and even made 
 opportunities for us to be together, after the 
 usual temper of people toward acknowledged
 
 ii4 TALES 
 
 lovers. On the third day out I asked her to 
 be my wife and all the while my other self 
 was conscious of Helena. 
 
 We were married in New York the day of 
 our arrival, and took the train immediately for 
 Boston, her home as well as mine. With 
 supreme disregard for consequences, I gave 
 orders to drive to my father's house ; leaving 
 Mabel in the reception-room, I entered the 
 study unannounced. 
 
 " My boy ! " exclaimed my father, holding 
 out his hands, his fine face aglow. " Here is 
 one who will rejoice even more than I," he 
 added, turning to Helena, who stood before 
 me silent, but with shining eyes and happy, 
 curved lips. 
 
 I awoke ! 
 
 In the overwhelming tide of feeling that 
 bore down upon me, I staggered, and sank 
 into the nearest chair. One lightning flash 
 appeared out of the blackness of darkness. I 
 had lost Helena ! 
 
 "He is ill, poor boy, as we feared when 
 we received no telegram," said my father. 
 " There was a look in his eyes as he entered 
 that I did not like." 
 
 Helena's cool, soft hand was placed upon 
 my forehead. The touch brought sicken- 
 ingly home my treachery. 
 
 " Don't touch me ! " I cried, as a leper of
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 115 
 
 old might have called out his woful warning, 
 " Unclean ! " "I am married ! " 
 
 " A touch of delirium," said my father, 
 professionally. " We must get him to bed ; 
 overwork " 
 
 "Don't you understand?" I repeated, 
 irritably ; " I tell you I am married. My wife 
 is with me." 
 
 Helen's arm slipped around my neck. 
 There was no trace of foolish embarrassment 
 in her voice or manner as she bowed her 
 head and whispered, so that only I could 
 hear: "Yes, my own, I am with you, 
 always. I will never leave you." 
 
 The door was pushed abruptly open and 
 Mabel entered. For a few moments there was 
 silence. Then my father spoke, calmly and 
 icily, " This room is no place for you, 
 Helena. Will you take my arm ? " 
 
 Presently he returned. 
 
 " Now, sir, what is the meaning of this? " 
 he demanded sternly. 
 
 In silence, I handed him the marriage cer 
 tificate. He was long in reading the few 
 lines. 
 
 " The old gentleman doesn't seem exactly 
 glib with his congratulations," suggested 
 Mabel, even her self-assurance shaken by this 
 reception. " I thought it was time I put in 
 an appearance," she added, in a strident
 
 ii6 TALES 
 
 whisper. " I was at the door, you know ; 
 naturally, I felt an interest in what was going 
 on." 
 
 Utilizing the glass door of the adjacent 
 bookcase as a mirror, she pulled out her 
 frizzes and settled her neckgear to her 
 fancy. Then, her equanimity apparently re 
 stored by the pleasing reflection, she turned 
 to my father. 
 
 " We've taken you by surprise, I suppose," 
 she simpered. " George couldn't wait for 
 even a wedding-gown, though I've always 
 said " 
 
 " Never let me see you again," said my 
 father, pointedly addressing me, and mo 
 tioned to the door. 
 
 "Aren't we going to live here?" queried 
 Mabel, in a loud, aggressive tone. " I won't 
 stir a step from this house. I've ordered our 
 ' At Home ' cards " 
 
 " Come," -I said sullenly ; and for once 
 silenced, she followed, and we left the house. 
 
 My wife's people lived on an avenue that, 
 having attempted fashion and achieved vul 
 garity, sank, by a natural transition, to the 
 unmentionable. A house here and there re 
 tained something of its former comparatively 
 decent estate, and in one of these florid, 
 arrogant dwellings, that one instinctively felt 
 was besmirched without and within by its
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 117 
 
 surroundings, Mabel's parents received me, 
 at first with flattery, changed by rapid degrees 
 to questioning looks and unconcealed ill- 
 feeling, as, day by day, the mistake their 
 daughter had made grew more evident. 
 
 Having, from habit of life and from well- 
 justified confidence in my own ability to 
 command an income commensurate with my 
 tastes, always lived to the extent of my pro 
 fessional earnings, I had no money laid by. 
 Financial straits were soon added to my 
 misery. With that exaggerated class feeling 
 inherent in the " Brahmin caste " of New Eng 
 land, the people amongst whom my private 
 practice had laid, for the alleged reason of 
 my treatment of one of their number, no 
 longer sought my advice. I received a cour 
 teous intimation from the Medical School 
 that the course of lectures which I had been 
 invited to deliver had been abandoned, for 
 reasons, etc. My position on managerial 
 boards became so unpleasant that I proffered 
 a resignation that was accepted without men 
 tion of " reconsideration." 
 
 Accompanying and accentuating this tan 
 gible trouble was the awful, unknowable Pres 
 ence that at times seemed to be driving me 
 mad. I might, indeed, have suspected my 
 sanity, had it not been that during the entire 
 period of my possession my mental faculties
 
 n8 TALES 
 
 remained unclouded ; in fact, day by day, my 
 intellect seemed to grow clearer, more lumi 
 nous. Besides, would not I, a recognized au 
 thority on Neurology, have been the first to 
 recognize a morbid disturbance of my own 
 nervous system? 
 
 Sometimes It would leave me free for days. 
 Then the sudden consciousness of Its pres 
 ence would overwhelm me, with Its concomi 
 tant sense of double consciousness. It did 
 not always dominate; that phase apparently 
 asserted itself in the more important junctures 
 of my life, leaving me free in the mere details 
 of every-day intercourse ; but the Presence 
 came and went erratically at wakeful mid 
 night, as I bought a paper of a newsboy, 
 or walked the crowded street at noonday. 
 However dense the throng, I was never 
 trodden by careless foot nor jostled by heed 
 less elbow. 
 
 One day, as I put the latch-key into the 
 door of what I called my home, It was sud 
 denly with me. Mabel was in the parlor with 
 the young man who had been her companion 
 that first day on the steamer. His name was 
 Fred Martin. I did not love my wife. I did 
 not even hate her. I knew I had no cause 
 for jealousy. But as I saw her and Martin 
 seated familiarly side by side, a mad passion 
 of anger and hatred took possession of me.
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 119 
 
 Involuntarily glancing up at the sudden 
 shadow in the doorway, Mabel's sudden start 
 was evidence of guilt. At the expression of 
 my face, she pressed closer to Martin, and 
 clasping his arm with both hands, cried, be 
 seechingly : 
 
 " Fred, Fred, don't let him hurt me. I am 
 afraid ! " and burst into hysterical sobs. 
 
 The disturbance brought her father and 
 mother to the room. Mabel was soothed 
 and petted, apologies were offered to Martin, 
 I was told, in undisguised language, that I 
 was a monster. Scant, indeed, was the toler 
 ance now meted out to me ! 
 
 This episode ushered in a new state of 
 affairs. Mabel could not leave the house 
 that I did not dog her footsteps. I ransacked 
 her desk, her bureau, for guilty correspond 
 ence. Martin was an old friend, nothing 
 more. I drove her into her sin, if, indeed, 
 sin it was. Partly from the comfort his 
 sympathy gave, partly because of my oppo 
 sition, for Mabel I write it without reproach 
 was of that nature that delights in the 
 forbidden, what my jealousy, that was yet 
 not my jealousy, feared, came to pass. One 
 day my wife wore a little bunch of violets at 
 her breast. I tore the flowers from her and, 
 like a raging beast, trampled them under 
 foot. " As I would do to him ! " I muttered.
 
 120 TALES 
 
 My wife did not, as usual, have recourse to 
 tears. 
 
 " Why did you marry me, if only to treat 
 me so! " she cried. "And I what a fool 
 I was ! I thought it would be fine to have 
 my cards engraved ' Beacon street,' but much 
 good your name or money has done me. 
 I wish to heaven I had married Fred Martin, 
 and let you keep your engagement to Miss 
 Kay ! " 
 
 "Did you know that I was betrothed?" 
 I demanded, holding her by the wrist as she 
 would have left the room. 
 
 " Of course I did," she answered, fear for 
 gotten in anger. " Don't you think that I 
 had read the passenger list and knew you for 
 a howling swell before I came on deck. Do 
 you take me for a fool?" 
 
 " I take you for something worse," I began 
 recklessly, when she snatched herself away 
 and hurried from the room casting a back 
 ward look of scorn and hatred. Heaven help 
 me if Heaven there be ! I deserved both. 
 
 After hours of aimless wandering through 
 the streets, I returned to find that my wife 
 had left me, with Martin. Her father awaited 
 me. 
 
 " There is but one course open," he said 
 sternly. " She must be set free to marry 
 Martin. Before Heaven, she is blameless,
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 121 
 
 but the plea for divorce must come from 
 you." 
 
 " I have no money to purchase my wife's 
 virtue," I returned doggedly, " low as the 
 market price appears to be." 
 
 Her father made a gesture of impatience. 
 
 " You shall have all the money that is 
 necessary. It is not by your treatment of 
 my daughter," he went on, in another tone, 
 a tone from which natural resentment had 
 died, "that you have inspired me with a 
 feeling unlike mortal hatred, the like of which 
 I have never known before, and which, I pray 
 to God, I may never know again. I say to 
 you, without passion, that I would rather my 
 only child should live as Martin's mistress 
 than as your wife ! " 
 
 So, at my instance, a suit for divorce was 
 entered. The newspapers printed daily bul 
 letins of its progress, with the customary il 
 lustrations. One cut represented me dragging 
 my wife about by her hair, on her refusal to 
 partake of the bottle labelled " Poison " which 
 I was somewhat indiscreetly brandishing. 
 Everything was against me. I attempted no 
 defence. Mabel shone out an afflicted angel 
 of light and goodness. The divorce was 
 granted, and, in due time, Mabel married Fred 
 Martin. 
 
 I hired an attic room in the labyrinth of
 
 122 TALES 
 
 lanes at the South End whose very existence 
 is unsuspected by the well to do and respect 
 able, and picked up a precarious living by 
 those methods damned in the word un 
 professional. 
 
 In one of the long, rambling walks in which, 
 goaded like Orestes of old, my nights were 
 frequently passed, I started to discover that 
 my unwitting footsteps had led me to the 
 neighborhood of my former home. The street 
 was thickly strewn with tan. The precaution 
 could only mean that my father was very ill. 
 I knew his malady the sight of his old and 
 honorable name dragged through the mire. 
 The longing to see him, if only once again, 
 took possession of me, and, without giving 
 myself time for reflection, I mounted the 
 familiar steps and pressed the bell. No sound 
 followed, but a servant evidently on guard in 
 the hall opened the door. 
 
 " Let me in ; I wish to see my father," I 
 said imperiously, and without allowing time 
 for denial or parley, pushed past the bewil 
 dered man and made my way up the stairs 
 and into my father's room. 
 
 Dr. Fredericks, an old friend and pro 
 fessional colleague of my father, was seated 
 at the bedside. He frowned at my en 
 trance, then arose and beckoned me into 
 the hall.
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 123 
 
 " Is he dying?" I questioned hoarsely. 
 
 " To-night will decide," answered the doc 
 tor, with stern brevity. " For what have you 
 come? " 
 
 "To see my father," I answered humbly. 
 " For what else could I have come? I knew 
 but just now of his illness. For God's sake, 
 don't keep me from him ! " 
 
 Dr. Fredericks' fine-featured face, at first 
 unrelenting, grew troubled, then perplexed. 
 Finally, the old physician said solemnly, " It 
 may be that your footsteps were guided to 
 this hour ! Your father will probably have 
 a moment of consciousness toward midnight," 
 he went on. " I dare not leave a dying man 
 for there is scant hope with a possible 
 longing ungratified, nor you without the 
 chance for forgiveness of which of all living 
 men I earnestly believe you stand most in 
 need. You were once the worthy son of 
 your father, George Dudley. And my pride 
 in your achievements was scarcely less than 
 his. In your hands I leave him. And pray 
 to God," he added, lifting his hand in the in 
 spiration of that moment when the ordained 
 physician feels himself the Great High-Priest 
 of the Almighty, " that in His great mercy 
 He may grant you opportunity to win back 
 the life that you, and you only, have brought 
 to this pass."
 
 124 TALES 
 
 I bowed my head and reentered the sick 
 room. 
 
 The nurse was sitting near the foot of the 
 bed. I took a chair at its head. Two hours 
 passed. Accustomed though she was to 
 continued vigils, the attendant looked drowsy. 
 
 " I will watch," I motioned with my lips. 
 " If I need help, I will wake you." 
 
 The woman gratefully assented and was 
 soon breathing regularly and deeply. An 
 other hour passed. Not for an instant did 
 my eyes leave my father's face. Midnight 
 came, and I saw, with the physician's trained 
 vision, that a change had taken place. The 
 sick man's countenance was no longer chalky 
 gray, the lines around his mouth had relaxed, 
 the forehead looked less parched. The crisis 
 had come, had passed ; and my father would 
 live ! 
 
 Then, even as I softly rose, once again that 
 brooding Horror filled the darkened room, and 
 the abyss of my last sin yawned before me. 
 
 Why should I give the sick man the life 
 that lay upon the table yonder? Hypodermic 
 injections of the strychnia would stimulate 
 the heart's feeble action to renewed life. The 
 returning tide had only to be watched and 
 fed to flow once again through the veins in 
 the full measure of tranquil health. Mean 
 time, what for me?
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 125 
 
 The wretched garret, the scanty food, the 
 aimless wanderings through the squalid streets 
 by night, the sinking yet deeper into the 
 quicksand of evil practice. Stay my hand, 
 no living man would be the wiser. " Heart 
 failure " would be the unquestioned verdict 
 over the death of the lamented Dr. Dudley. 
 
 Once again, as in a deadly nightmare, I 
 knew the remorse that my act would bring in 
 waking hours, but was without the power, nay, 
 even the desire, to arouse myself. I revelled 
 in the thought of the luxury that would again 
 be mine. I scarcely breathed lest I should 
 awake the nurse, whose nodding head caused 
 me infinite amusement. I laid wagers with 
 myself whether the death-rattle would arouse 
 her; I smiled in joyful unison of thought and 
 feeling to Something that was behind the 
 screen, that was not there, nor here, nor any 
 where, yet crushed upon my soul with all- 
 pervasive force. 
 
 With eyes glued upon the face of my father, 
 I noted with practised eyes each subtle symp 
 tom ; saw life ebb away, and, ghoul-like, 
 feasted upon the sight, and stirred neither 
 hand nor foot. 
 
 The hours crept slowly on till that time 
 when death comes oftenest. With the faint 
 morning light my father opened his eyes in 
 consciousness.
 
 126 TALES 
 
 " George, my dear, dear boy ! " he mur 
 mured, made a motion as though to stretch 
 out his arms to me, sighed faintly, and with 
 that sigh breathed out his life murdered, 
 literally starved to death, by his son. 
 
 When It again left me, none of that list, 
 whose first is Cain, suffered with my suffering. 
 
 As I had foreseen, my father had made no 
 will, and I was sole heir. I am living in the 
 house that was my home, but no servant re 
 mains with me four and twenty hours. No man 
 calls me friend, and of them all none can 
 answer why ! My sole resource is work, and 
 far into the night I write the chapters on the 
 " Pathology of the Mind " that will some day 
 be given to the world that will no longer 
 accept my daily labor. 
 
 I have prepared this record for the woman 
 I have never ceased to love, to be given to 
 her after my death. Perhaps what is dark 
 in it may be clear to her higher light, her 
 finer, purer spirit. 
 
 November 5, Three weeks have elapsed 
 since writing the above pages, and in all that 
 time I have been free. Suppose but I dare 
 not picture to myself the possibility of a life 
 free from curse. Yet since that tenth of 
 September there has never been so long an 
 interval that It has left me undisturbed.
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 127 
 
 November 6. I saw and spoke with her 
 to-day, for the first time since that meeting in 
 my father's study. I dared not have spoken, 
 nor even have lifted my eyes to her face, but 
 she paused and held out her hand to me 
 to me! 
 
 " Helena ! " and as hands and eyes met, I 
 knew that her love was as changeless as my 
 own. 
 
 " I was sorry for your father's death," she 
 said. " I could not have grieved more, for 
 you and for myself, if I had really been the 
 daughter that I once thought to be," she 
 added, with her own directness and sim 
 plicity. 
 
 " Sorry for me ? " I stammered. 
 
 " It has not been you I have blamed," she 
 made answer softly. 
 
 " May I come to see you sometimes?" 
 I asked eagerly. "I I would only remain 
 a few minutes. I would only look upon your 
 face, and go without a word," I pleaded. 
 
 Ah, the time when the evenings at her side 
 were all too short for both ! 
 
 " It is better that you do not," she answered, 
 with more than the old-time gentleness. " My 
 prayers will always and forever be yours, but 
 you have a wife," and to the sweet inex- 
 orableness of her tone I bared my head, for 
 to her the marriage service speaks with her
 
 128 TALES 
 
 own truth, and what her God has joined to 
 gether, only He can put asunder. 
 
 November 29. Still free. 
 
 December 5. Another week has passed 
 without Its presence. I have dared to picture 
 to myself the future, if It has left me for the 
 last time. Surely men would take me once 
 more by the hand when indefinable horror no 
 longer thrills them with the touch. Perhaps 
 Heaven, relentless to my prayers, may, in 
 answer to hers, vouchsafe me the mercy of 
 atonement, in small measure, for my sin, by 
 offering a life for a life. Yet, oh, if in that 
 future I could see one face, could have one 
 faint hope that on some blessed far-off day 
 Helena might be mine ! It is too much to 
 plead for happiness. 
 
 O God, if there be a God, I ask but the 
 opportunity of once again serving my fellow- 
 men ! 
 
 Yet, come what may, I can never be alone 
 again, for I know that one heart is filled with 
 love for me. My darling, forgive me the 
 misery I have wrought you ! I implore for 
 future as well as for past, for in spite of my 
 self, my heart misgives me. Myself has 
 become a Horror. 
 
 December 10. Two months have now 
 elapsed, and day by day hope grows brighter. 
 A servant has remained with me for a week.
 
 THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER 129 
 
 I can see a change in my own face as I sur 
 vey its features in the mirror, with the scru 
 tiny of a girl of sixteen, on rising. 
 
 I dare to hope. 
 
 December n. For the first time for many 
 months a patient has sought me. I could 
 not have given him more flattering attention 
 had I been a young physician with his first 
 case. Moreover, the man himself interested 
 me. He entered the office quietly, and 
 described his symptoms with brevity and 
 intelligence, unconsciously telling more than 
 he uttered. 
 
 It appeared that he was a plumber by 
 trade, and that while at work in a house at 
 the old West End a rat had bitten him. He 
 sought my advice regarding the unhealed 
 wound. 
 
 " It seems that you are troubled with rats, 
 too, sir," he remarked, as I examined his 
 hand. " In fact, it is singular how many of 
 the finest houses in the city are so infested. 
 As soon as I step into a house, I see a rat 
 scampering through the hall. Doesn't it dis 
 turb you when one races over the table like 
 that?" 
 
 "Was there more than one?" 
 
 "There is never but one. He was like the 
 fellow that bit me, with a long tail and red 
 eyes. I have always been afraid of rats,
 
 130 TALES 
 
 I never undertake a job without tremor, 
 although, as one may say, my life has been 
 passed amongst them. What! no fee? " 
 
 It would have been useless to argue with 
 my patient concerning his delusion. On 
 all other points perfectly sane, he doubtless 
 went about his business with as much intelli 
 gence as though he was not afflicted with 
 this curious mania. Arguments would have 
 been wasted in seeking to convince him of 
 the non-existence of the ghostly rat. He 
 might even have talked and compared notes 
 with a man having essentially the same 
 symptoms, and failed to recognize them as 
 his own. His case adds an interesting illus 
 tration to the concluding chapter of my 
 " Pathology of the Mind." 
 
 December 12. Glancing over the morning 
 newspaper, my eyes fell upon this item in the 
 list of "Deaths:" 
 
 " On the nth inst., Mabel, wife of Fred 
 erick Martin, aged twenty-three years, four 
 months." 
 
 My instant thought was Helena. I would 
 have asked no woman to share my shadowed 
 life, but now, when It has left me forever, and 
 the only bar, to her, to our union is removed, 
 she may be my wife. And perhaps, in time, 
 the memory of these darkened years O 
 God ! again Hel Hel e
 
 MARM PHCEBE'S FORTUNE 
 
 MARM PHCEBE sat erect in her favor 
 ite three-cornered chair in the parlor. 
 A sontag, of some long-ago indeterminate 
 color, was drawn tightly about her meagre 
 shoulders. The mammoth white ruffles of a 
 close-fitting cap, surmounted by a rampant 
 bow of stiff black ribbon, framed a face that, 
 brown as though stained with walnut juice, had 
 the look of mingled fierceness and wistfulness 
 not uncommon upon the faces of old women 
 whose kinsfolk for generations have gone down 
 to the sea in ships. 
 
 The wind had been " out " all day, and now, 
 in the gloaming, its threat was fulfilled in the 
 heavy drops of rain splashing against the 
 many-paned windows. The room, with its 
 low planchment, its hair-cloth furniture and 
 wall-paper of stagnant green besprawled with 
 livid spiders, had the musty smell peculiar to 
 houses of great antiquity. Over the high, 
 narrow mantel-shelf hung the portrait of the 
 minister.
 
 132 TALES 
 
 The woodeny features, the lack-lustre eyes 
 and flaccid mouth of the canvas gave no hint 
 of the personality that had played so momen 
 tous a part in the terrible drama that closed 
 the seventeenth century in New England. 
 There was a story, colored by the superstition 
 rife amongst a seafaring folk, that pretended 
 to explain why the artist, though of no mean 
 repute in his day and generation, had so 
 signally failed in what should have been the 
 masterpiece of his art. In the possession of 
 the minister was a negro slave woman named 
 Tituba. She was of an unruly temper, and 
 her master, after dealing with her with exem 
 plary patience, sold her out of the country. 
 Still, it may not have been an ill fate that 
 consigned the old woman to the Portuguese 
 trader, for in the terrible days of the witch 
 craft delusion, no one's life was safe from day 
 to day, and a hasty word or a mere slip of 
 the tongue, to say nothing of the ill-will of 
 malicious folk, had sent even good and mild- 
 mannered women to their death on Gallows 
 Hill. But Tituba's rage at this unexpected 
 disposition of what, in her froward temper, 
 she had come to regard as her own body and 
 soul knew no bounds, and her parting objur 
 gation to her master was : 
 
 " Your pride shall go before your destruc 
 tion."
 
 MARM PHCEBE'S FORTUNE 133 
 
 The blow was well aimed, for pride might 
 well have been called the besetting sin of the 
 clergy, who aimed at nothing less than the 
 supreme control of affairs, civil as well as 
 ecclesiastical, in the new country. And was 
 not the right divine of its authority receiving 
 triumphant vindication in the undaunted front 
 it presented in the present crisis well de 
 picted by the Reverend Cotton Mather as " that 
 dark and diabolical confederation between 
 Satan and some of the inhabitants, that threat 
 ened to overthrow and extirpate religion and 
 morality, and to establish the kingdom of the 
 Evil One in a country which had been dedi 
 cated by the prayers and tears and sufferings 
 of its pious fathers to God and the Church." 
 
 Pride it was surely, too, although of a more 
 personal and petty kind, that led the minis 
 ter, who in sooth was a man of comely parts, 
 to expend the sum realized from the sale of 
 Tituba in having his portrait painted ; but 
 the result was disappointing, for strive as the 
 artist would, only meaningless lines, flat sur 
 faces, lifeless color, represented his reverend 
 subject; but, meantime, in the background, 
 there grew another face one that the 
 painter had never seen in life. Incessantly 
 he overlaid his involuntary work with his 
 darkest pigments. Out of the murky shad 
 ows the black face slowly emerged, and
 
 134 TALES 
 
 whether he would or no, the hapless artist 
 must bestow upon its rendering the very tri 
 umph of his skill, till it stood upon the canvas 
 instinct with life and wickedness and a wis 
 dom not of this world. 
 
 For what work had he been hired? Did 
 not the price of his labor represent Tituba, 
 body and soul? Tooled by that insistent 
 horror, he neither ate nor slept in the latter 
 days of his task, and at its completion broke 
 his brushes and went mad. In later days the 
 tale was sometimes scoffed at. Small wonder, 
 it was said, that the painter's hand had lost 
 its cunning and hallucination clouded his 
 brain, when he had " cried out " upon his 
 own mother, and been witness to her death 
 on Gallows Hill ! 
 
 It was matter of history how, when the 
 power of the clergy had reached its height, it 
 was dealt its death-blow by Robert Calef, 
 merchant, of Boston, in his book called the 
 " History of the Witchcraft Delusion." Con 
 tumely fell upon the minister, as upon all 
 those actively engaged in the persecution, 
 and his last days were those of poverty and 
 loneliness. 
 
 Let one seek to explain it as he would, 
 there could be no doubt that the old slave 
 woman's malediction had received repeated 
 confirmation in every generation. Always
 
 MARM PHOEBE'S FORTUNE 135 
 
 had pride, the fulfilment of desire, been the 
 precursor of destruction ; ever, as the brim 
 ming cup touched the lip of the minister's 
 ill-fated descendants, came the fatal slip ! 
 
 In Revolutionary times there was the colo 
 nel, whose distinction it was to have steered 
 the boat that conveyed Washington through 
 the floating ice of the Delaware, to Trenton 
 and victory. The Old Town welcomed its 
 hero's return with frenzied patriotism ; there 
 were but few hours left of the night when the 
 colonel, still clad in his buff and blue, cast 
 himself into the three-cornered chair in his 
 own parlor. There he was found in the 
 murky morning light, huddled into an inert 
 mass, his rigid fingers clutching his drawn 
 sword, and a ghastly terror in the glazed, wide- 
 open eyes fixed upon the portrait of the min 
 ister, or, as the gossips averred, upon a space 
 a little above the minister's left shoulder. 
 There was a sword-thrust through the canvas 
 at that spot, which doubtless was the animus 
 of the whispered tale of what it was that the 
 dauntless soldier had vainly sought to master 
 with carnal weapon. And there was none to 
 suggest that the colonel may have drank 
 once too often to the welfare of General 
 Washington and the new government. 
 
 But if this evidence was not conclusive, 
 what could be said of the fate of Marm
 
 136 TALES 
 
 Phoebe's own father? Many times had the 
 captain sailed out of the Old Town harbor, 
 always to return in safety and with rich cargo, 
 although those were the days when vessels 
 were at the mercy of every contrary wind and 
 delaying calm ; when there must be braved 
 the onslaught of Barbary pirates and the 
 perils of the voyage around the Horn, before 
 reaching the African coast and the East Indies, 
 where new perils lay in wait in the greed and 
 treachery of the natives. And now fresh 
 danger menaced the Old Town merchantmen, 
 in those depredations of the French war-craft 
 that followed the war of 1 8 1 2. That voyage of 
 the brig " Cypher " to the coast of Africa was 
 to be the last. The captain had embarked 
 all his fortune in the venture, and the return 
 freight of gold dust more than realized his 
 fondest anticipations. But there was another 
 reason besides the thought of the peaceful 
 life he would henceforth lead on shore, in one 
 of the stately mansions known as the " King's 
 houses," for the captain's eagerness to sight 
 the Old Fort. A child had been born to him 
 in his absence the child of his years. Her 
 name for with all a sailor's fervid piety, the 
 captain felt no doubt that his prayer for "a 
 little maid " would be answered had been 
 decided upon before his departure ; and in the 
 capacious blue sea-chest, covered with the
 
 HARM PHCEBE'S FORTUNE 137 
 
 intricate carvings of a sailor's jackknife, were 
 wonderful playthings of coral and ivory, and 
 a big carved work-box filled with marvellous 
 trays, for the little girl who would soon be old 
 enough to work her " sampler ; " and in the 
 captain's cabin- hung a gilded cage with a 
 green and gold parrot which had been taught 
 to say " Phoebe," in whimsical anticipation of 
 the tender word. It was the custom in the Old 
 Town for the boys to lie in wait at the Old Fort 
 when a vessel was expected home, and as soon 
 as she came in sight to run with the joyful 
 news to the sailors' wives ; the expected gold 
 dollar was always gladly paid. It was early 
 one bright spring morning that the tidings of 
 the brig " Cypher's " return were thus brought 
 to little Phoebe's mother, who with her baby 
 in her arms sped to the Old Fort. She was 
 just in time to see the " Cypher " set upon 
 by a French frigate that had been hovering 
 about the coast for days, attracted by the 
 rumor of the brig's rich freight. All 
 the other ships of the Old Town, with its 
 able-bodied men, were at sea ; the frenzied 
 remnant of the townsfolk gathered on the 
 headland, and watched the fight, impotent. 
 Gallant defence was made, but what chance 
 had the poorly armed merchantman against 
 a fully equipped man-of-war? In one short 
 hour the agonized wife saw the " Cypher"
 
 138 TALES 
 
 riddled with shot, boarded by the French, 
 and the worthless hulk turned adrift. 
 
 Once, in her frenzy, when the fray was at 
 its height, she held her baby high in her arms, 
 out toward the scene of combat. A sailor, 
 who, sorely wounded, was the only man on 
 board the brig who succeeded in reaching the 
 shore, told how, hard beset, the captain had 
 suddenly seized his spyglass and directed it 
 toward the Old Fort an indiscretion for 
 which he paid dearly, for the next moment the 
 sword of the French captain was through his 
 heart. A few days later, the wreck of the 
 " Cypher " was cast upon the shore. Although 
 the brig had been gutted of everything of 
 intrinsic value, the ship's papers, the invoice 
 of the cargo, and the captain's private diary 
 were discovered intact, and, though drenched 
 with sea water, still legible. 
 
 That was the story to which little Phoebe 
 listened, almost at her mother's breast. 
 " Tell it again ! " and once more the child 
 heard how her father had been cruelly mur 
 dered, and how the gold wrested from him 
 was to be paid back to his wife and child. 
 For, from the outset, it was expected that 
 the American government would assume, as 
 a tacit portion of the new treaty with France, 
 the losses suffered by American shipping at 
 the hands of its former allies. But delay and
 
 HARM PHCEBE'S FORTUNE 139 
 
 renewed promises and fresh complications 
 repeated their weary round from year to year, 
 and still the French Spoliation Claims were 
 an unpaid debt to the descendants of the 
 brave sea-captains of the early century. 
 
 But Phoebe never doubted. 
 
 "Will it be to-morrow?" and satisfied 
 with the answer, the child went to sleep 
 hugging to her heart the forlorn rag that was 
 her childish " comfort." 
 
 " Coom, choild, don yur-rr c'losh, 'n' run 
 fur-rr th' letter ! " As far back as memory 
 reached, that had been the twilight bidding. 
 
 In those far-off days the mail came by 
 stage-coach, once a week, from Boston, and 
 was deposited at the Fountain Inn. Phcebe 
 must traverse the long, shingly stretch of 
 beach that lay between, dodging misshapen 
 bowlders, speeding past patches of quiver 
 ing marsh-grass in which strange creatures 
 lurked, and jumping pools of writhing sea 
 weed, in whose slimy depths shapeless forms 
 lay in wait ; while the wind blew keenly from 
 over the open sea, and the cries of the wraith 
 of Barnegat, the Shrieking Woman, 
 hideously murdered by Old Town pirates of 
 eld, sounded in the child's ears, and gave 
 the last touch of horror to the scene. 
 
 The French Spoliation Claims stood to 
 little Phcebe for all the fairy-lore familiar to
 
 140 TALES 
 
 more favored children. The three wishes of 
 elfin munificence, the possession of the purse 
 of Fortunatus, of Aladdin's lamp, all of 
 richness and wonder would be realized when 
 the brig " Cypher's " freight was made good. 
 In that day she would play with golden grains 
 spread out like the sands of the seashore 
 for in her fantasy it was the " Cypher's " gold- 
 dust that would be brought back intact; she 
 would have a monkey to play with, and a 
 green and gold parrot in a gilded cage, that 
 would say " Phcebe," like the one that was 
 told about in the last entry of her father's 
 diary. 
 
 As she grew older, if her dreams became 
 more restrained they were not less vivid. The 
 days of which her mother told when the 
 Old Town had been the chief port of the East 
 India trade should be restored in their 
 plenitude. Hogsheads of molasses, and rich, 
 spicy brown sugar should stand in the store 
 room, with store of cocoanuts, and oranges, 
 and bananas, and tamarinds out of which 
 to make delectable "tamarind water; " there 
 should be barrels of pickled limes ; and of 
 guava jelly and other rich, strange, foreign 
 sweetmeats, galore. She would wear gowns 
 of cool seersucker and soft, lustrous India 
 silk, and would deck herself in rich cashmere 
 shawls and sweeping ostrich plumes ; and she
 
 MARM PHCEBE'S FORTUNE 141 
 
 would carry a sweet-smelling sandalwood fan 
 and a carved ivory card-case. 
 
 Before Phoebe had fairly outgrown child 
 hood, the burden of two lives was laid upon 
 her shoulders. Her mother had never re 
 covered from the shock of that hour at the 
 Old Fort; incessant toil and meagre fare 
 completed the ill work, and a stroke of pa 
 ralysis rendered her helpless. 
 
 She sat, day after day, in the quaint old 
 three-cornered chair, with her piercing eyes, 
 to which had come the renewed vision some 
 times bestowed by advanced years, never 
 leaving the portrait over the mantel-shelf. 
 Sometimes she would nod her head, and, 
 pointing her skinny forefinger at the broken 
 place in the canvas, utter shrill, unfathomable 
 gibberish. Some hallucination concerned with 
 the portrait she undoubtedly had, but it was 
 not worth while to try to unravel the thread- 
 ings of a tangled mind, nor, in a soil where 
 every germ of superstition found rank growth, 
 to heed the whisper that the old woman's 
 marvellous vision had pierced beyond the 
 shadows into the background of the picture. 
 
 At the best, Phoebe could earn but a 
 meagre pittance oiling fishermen's clothes and 
 " bushelling," as the rough mending of 
 the fisherfolk was called ; for the town had 
 never recovered from the blow dealt its ship-
 
 142 TALES 
 
 ping by the French war-craft, and its inter 
 ests had dwindled to those of a mere fishing- 
 hamlet Only once had a gleam of sunlight 
 found its way to Phcebe's darkened life. That 
 was when she and William Dolliver were 
 " keeping company." When or how the twain, 
 in their lives of incessant toil, found time to 
 make known their mutual love by so much 
 as a tender glance or a lingering pressure of 
 the hand could not be told ; but one evening 
 Lum Dolliver asked Phoebe to accompany 
 him to the Old Fort, where time out of mind 
 Old Town lovers had strayed. It was then 
 that he put his arm around her and called her 
 his " sweetheart." 
 
 The next day, the fishing-smack of 
 which he was part owner set sail for the 
 Grand Banks, and was lost, with all on board, 
 in the well-remembered gale that swept away 
 most of the Old Town fishing-craft and 
 doomed the town to yet further narrowness 
 .and squalor. To Phcebe there came scarcely 
 a pang at her lover's loss. Youth and natural 
 desire had responded to that hour at the Old 
 Fort, but one idea had dominated her life too 
 long to be easily supplanted by another. 
 
 The Old Town had always held itself aloof 
 from its neighbors, in a certain inexplicable 
 pride of isolation. Following the September 
 gale, no breath of the world's great life ever
 
 MARM PHCEBE'S FORTUNE 143 
 
 reached its borders ; widowed and orphaned, 
 its women, with strange, fierce resentment 
 against a world that had no sorrow like unto 
 their sorrow, hooted the stranger from out 
 the ways ; the very children stoned the vent 
 uresome traveller who set foot within its con 
 fines. Even the houses seemed to have 
 caught the infection of sullen hermithood, 
 and with their bull's-eye doors and the queer 
 outside staircases known as " standards," 
 climbed up on the high rocky ledges, drew 
 up their skirts around them, and sat down 
 with their backs upon the labyrinth of nar 
 row, crooked lanes below. 
 
 One morning Marm Phoebe's mother was 
 found dead in the three-cornered chair, her 
 wide-open eyes still fixed upon the minister's 
 portrait. An old woman, if not in years, in 
 stiffened limbs and stiffer habits of life, Marm 
 Phcebe lived on alone with the added mis 
 ery of not knowing her own loneliness. The 
 visions of comfort and plenty had disap 
 peared like the fantasies of her childhood. 
 Merely to touch and handle the gold, to dab 
 ble her hands in the yellow grains and let 
 them slip through her fingers, in that 
 thought she lived and moved and had her 
 being. It mattered not that to the generation 
 that had arisen " Marm Phoebe's fortune " was 
 a legend, classed with that of the Shrieking 

 
 144 TALES 
 
 Woman. Every twilight the quaint green 
 calash appeared at the window of the post- 
 office with the query, " Has th' letter coom? " 
 and at the inevitable answer turned away to 
 wait till to-morrow. Hope was not the lovely 
 being hidden in the box of Troubles. It was 
 the terrible Old Man of the Sea, strangled in 
 one form only to reappear in another hideous, 
 mocking shape. 
 
 She had not failed to-night of her usual 
 mission because of a first faint chill mis 
 giving ; at least, none was present to her 
 active consciousness. She had the molly- 
 grubs, she told herself, and her customary 
 supper of dry bread, and tea without milk or 
 sugar, had not " set jist right." 
 
 There was a tap at the window. The 
 stunted figure of the postmaster's son stood 
 on tiptoe without, wildly waving some white 
 object. Marm Phoebe raised the window a 
 crack. 
 
 " Chuck ! " called out the boy, and a 
 letter whirled across the room. The messen 
 ger was off like the wind, and Marm Phcebe 
 shut the window, secured its primitive fasten 
 ing, closed the inside shutters, and deliberately 
 hooked the upper and lower set. Then she lit 
 the lamp and picked up the big envelope. 
 There was no thrill of happy surmise in the 
 touch, deliciously prolonged by toying with
 
 MARM PHCEBE'S FORTUNE 145 
 
 the missive, by examining the official imprint 
 in the corner, by playing at ignorance of its 
 contents. The world held but one letter. 
 The expected had happened. 
 
 She searched in her work-basket for the 
 scissors, cut open the envelope, and read, 
 word by word, the formal statement of the 
 Court of Claims : in effect, that the evidence 
 respecting the brig " Cypher " had been ad 
 mitted, and reimbursement made accordingly, 
 out of the French Spoliation Fund. Accom 
 panying was another paper. 
 
 It was a treasury warrant for one hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars. 
 
 Hope sloughed once again, and snaked 
 forth Realization ; and its substance was 
 shadow, and its grasp nothingness. 
 
 A wave of loneliness and emptiness and 
 unutterable desolation swept over Marm 
 Phoebe. The very reason and substance of 
 being had been stricken from her, and all she 
 had in its stead was a scrap of paper ! And 
 her head ached, and her eyes swam, and she 
 was strangely tired. From some undefined 
 impulse that perhaps had its root in an un 
 recognized need of sympathy, perhaps from 
 an undefined distrust of the shadows on the 
 portrait, she glanced suddenly upward, but 
 only the woodeny features of her reverend 
 ancestor responded. 

 
 146 TALES 
 
 She was conscious of a vague discomfort, 
 as though some one, invisible to her, was 
 watching her intently ; there was a reflection 
 of her mother's demented rage in the resent 
 ment that glowed dully against somebody 
 who -was spying upon her. Wait, she would 
 fix the old witch-woman ! She would turn 
 her portrait face to the wall ! 
 
 With frenzied haste Marm Phoebe dragged 
 the chair to the mantel-shelf, mounted it, 
 and, exerting all her strength, swung the por 
 trait around. The extent of the injury done 
 by the colonel in his drunken rage was thus 
 revealed ; the sword had broken through the 
 thin board backing, and as the picture was re 
 moved from its support against the wall, a 
 splinter fell away, revealing a roll of parch 
 ment that had been carefully concealed in 
 the interior. Marm Phoebe pulled it out, 
 without surprise or curiosity. In the strange 
 numbness that seemed to be stealing over 
 her mental faculties as well as her physical 
 members, if the minister himself had stepped 
 out and down from the frame, it would 
 scarcely have aroused emotion. She drew 
 near the lamp and prepared to read the 
 message so strangely brought to light, in the 
 perfunctory way in which one might peruse 
 an indifferent letter placed in one's hand. 
 She recognized the quaint, crabbed hand-
 
 HARM PHCEBE'S FORTUNE 147 
 
 writing of the parchment as the minister's ; 
 and even to her beclouded faculties straggled 
 the perception that her reverend ancestor 
 had taken advantage of the ill repute of his 
 own portrait to consign some secret to its 
 keeping. 
 
 I write these Pages y* Inner Rec* of y" Proceed 
 ings that have, of late, inflam d All New England 
 that future Generations may justify Mine Own Conduct 
 therein, & that of y* Holy Man of God, y Rev d Cot 
 ton Mather. 
 
 My Daughter Elizabeth & My Niece Abigail found 
 Plesure in listening to y* Tales of my old Negro Slave 
 Woman, Tituba by Name, bought by mee whilst a 
 Merchant in y Spanish Main. More especially they 
 hearkened to her Narrative of a Strange Pow r pos 
 sess 4 by some of her Race, known as Hoodoo, & by 
 them chiefly used to y* Discomfiture of their Enemies. 
 For a long Time, y* Old Woman professed to bee un 
 able, herself, to Produce any of These same Marvells ; 
 but y fervid Intrest of y* Children at last moved her 
 to give some slight Attestation of y* Strange Pow r . 
 Y' Story was privily Whispered to a Playmate, Ann 
 Putnam by Name & Tituba Yield 4 , after no Great 
 Solicitation, to y* Pleading, " Do it again." By Hints 
 & Mysterious half told Tales, y' Curiosity of various 
 Goodwives in y* Neighborhood was now aroused & y' 
 Circle gradually Increas*, meeting Regularly at y* 
 Houses of y' Different Members, at such Times as 
 y* Goodman of y* House might bee absent. One 
 after Another of y* Circle, intoxicated by y* Discovery 
 of her own Possession of y" Strange Pow r , was led 
 Farther & yet Farther, to its Excise. I will add that 
 Goodwife Bishop, Goodwife Corey Others who suf-
 
 1 48 TALES 
 
 fered Death as Witches upon Gallows Hill, began 
 their Practises with no Other Intent than y" Gratifica 
 tion of Their Idle Curiosity ; misled by y* Strange 
 Pow r so unexpectedly evoked, they put it to Unlawful 
 Ends, & Whither it may carry any one not having y* 
 Fear of God before his Eyes, I know not. 
 
 Of All y* Arts known to Tituba, I am not acquaint 
 ed; but Chief amongst Them, when she would Prac 
 tise upon One Present in y* Flesh, was to hold Before 
 his Eyes a Certain Bright Stone, always worn by 
 her around her Neck, with y" Result, too Marvellous 
 of Credence had I not been Privily Witness thereto, of 
 Producing a Belief in All Manner of Unrealities ; & 
 what may bee y* Limits of y e Strange Pow r , in Extent, 
 or Time, or Space, is not for mee to Affirm. But thus 
 far it is given mee to Speak with Certitude. 
 
 There bee a Certain Pow r invested in Men, by w*, 
 with y* Aid of a Bright Stone or like Object, held 
 close before y* Eyes, they may exert Strange Influence 
 over their Fellow Beings, so that these last shall have 
 no Sense, nor Desire, nor Will, save that of their 
 Masters. They shall shrink from no Command that 
 is laid upon them ; they shall Think & Talk & Act, 
 like Creatures Possess 4 of Understanding, yet be with 
 out Present Wit or after Recollection, of that w" 1 they 
 have thought & said & wrought ; & y* Knowledge of y e 
 Strange Pow r was possess* by Prophets & Wise Men 
 of old, in y* far East & in y* Land of y* Pharaohs ; 
 & it was Guarded by these from y* People, to y* 
 Great Furthrance of y* Might of y e Priesthood. & This 
 it is given to mee to Speak upon y Attestation of y 
 Rev* Cotton Mather, who in his great Learning & his 
 Knowledge of many Tongues, had Acquaintance with 
 y" Strange Pow r . Of y* Extent of his Knowledge & 
 whether he himself practised therein, I know naught, 
 & This I do affirm upon my most Solemn Oath.
 
 MARM PHOEBE'S FORTUNE 149 
 
 His Acquaintance with y" Events here set down 
 followed close upon Mine Own, for I deemed it wise 
 to obtain y e Light of his great Learning & Piety upon 
 Matters w oh pressed heavily upon mine Own Humble 
 Understanding. It was my farther good Hap, to 
 receive from him, from Time to Time, divers & 
 various Instructions how to fan y Spark into a Blaze, 
 for y" Maintenance & greater Pow r of y e Church in 
 New England, whose Champion he was, So that, to 
 use the words of his own Pious Exhortation, " It shall 
 enable us so to Box it about amongst ourselves, till it 
 come I know not where, at last." 
 
 Let them who raise y* Spell, beware y' Fiend. Y* 
 Madness of y' People went beyond Guidance or 
 Control; & as it was written, " Y" Brother shall 
 betray y' Brother to Deathe & y" Fath r y 6 Son ; & 
 Children shall rise up against their Parents & shall 
 cause Them to bee put to Deathe," aye, even to y 
 Heavy Deathe. 
 
 Y e Humor of y' People veered & catching up y* 
 Bell of y" Arch Traitor & Infidel, Rob' Calef, Merchant, 
 of Boston, hound upon us with y* Cry, "Delusion!" 
 Y' Rev d Cotton Mather is reviled & insulted in y* 
 very Streets of Boston, late y* Citadel of God's Pow r 
 in y* New World. Y" Judge who passed Sentence 
 upon those now termed " Martyrs" doeth, yearly, Public 
 Penance for his Unjust Judgments. I am cried out 
 Upon for greater Wickedness than any proven against 
 those who suffer 4 . Y e Civic Pew* of y' Clergy is 
 stricken from them forever ; nay, its Pow p in y' Spirit 
 ual Guidance of y* People has rec d so deadly a Blow 
 that henceforth & forever, we shall bee looked upon 
 but as Blind Mouths. Blood will swim before Men's 
 Eyes when they turn them upon God's Ministers, and 
 good Men & True shall Turn themselves away from 
 Ghostly Counsel.
 
 ISO TALES 
 
 Y* Witches were no "Martyrs." They met their 
 just Deserts. 
 
 When, Centuries hence, Men shall have recov 4 from 
 y* Evil Days upon w"* we are fallen & shall seek En 
 lightened Understanding of y* Strange Pow r , not to y* 
 Flickring Strength of Priestcraft shall Knowledge bee 
 given. 
 
 Unto that day, committing y* Discovery of these 
 Pages to y* Providence Men call Chance, I leave my 
 Words of Revelation & Warning. 
 
 "Cat's foot!" ejaculated Marm Phoebe. 
 
 Witchcraft, as embodied in the old tales of 
 a midnight mass presided over by a black 
 man with a long, narrow red book, the 
 ledger of lost souls, might have ground for 
 belief; uncanny concomitant stories familiar 
 in the Old Town bore out its plausibility. 
 There was Lum Dolliver's mother, who saw 
 the vessel that bore her son to destruction 
 take on the form of a shroud as it rounded 
 the Old Fort. And had not Marm Cas'll, at 
 the very moment her twin brother was 
 drowned off the Horn, awaked with the taste 
 of salt water in her mouth, and the sensation 
 of being strangled? But this stuff about a 
 "strange power "that made people puppets 
 in its hands was not to be hearkened to by 
 any one who knew how many blue beans it 
 took to make seven. 
 
 Without more ado, Marm Phcebe held the 
 MS., sheet by sheet, over the flame of the
 
 HARM PHCEBE'S FORTUNE 151 
 
 lamp, and watched them consume to her 
 finger tips. As though the blaze of that last 
 scrap of paper possessed, like the dervish's 
 ointment, some mystic power of illumination, 
 for the space of its brief light there glowed 
 before her mental vision the utmost meaning 
 and glory of her wealth. The golden fan 
 tasies of childhood, the dreams of peace and 
 plenty of her maturer years, the rapture of 
 handling the vast sum over which her age 
 had gloated, all, all were hers ! The salt 
 breath of the ocean fanned her cheek; she 
 felt the touch of Lum Dolliver's strong, manly 
 arm, and heard his whisper, " My sweetheart !" 
 
 Not from her parched lip had the brim 
 ming cup been dashed ! 
 
 Wait, she would show the fortune to the 
 black woman who was always trying to wreak 
 her vengeance upon her and hers. She 
 would flaunt the priceless paper in Tituba's 
 face and scoff her and laugh at her ! With 
 frenzied haste Marm Phoebe pushed the 
 chair to the mantel-shelf again, and replaced 
 the minister's portrait in its position. Some 
 where, out there in the shadows, Tituba was 
 lurking. She could see, if she could not be 
 seen. She should part her huge lips and 
 gnash her hideous white teeth, impotent ! 
 
 Marm Phoebe turned to the table. The 
 scrap of paper was not there. She searched
 
 152 TALES 
 
 the floor, the chairs, and even peered behind 
 the shutters, in vain. Bewildered, her un 
 thinking glance rested on the heap of charred 
 fragments beside the lamp, and the truth 
 burst upon her. 
 
 She had burnt the treasury warrant ! 
 
 The face of the minister had become 
 blurred. What gleamed there over his shoul 
 der a double gleam, like the white of 
 glaring eyeballs ! The background of the 
 picture was melting away. What was that 
 coming nearer and yet nearer ! Why 
 should mere shadows take on a look of un 
 speakable, monstrous triumph ! 
 
 " She was took like her mother," said the 
 neighbors the following day, when Marm 
 Phoebe was found huddled into an inert heap 
 on the parlor floor. One rigid hand clutched 
 a round of the three-cornered chair, and the 
 lack-lustre eyes were fixed, in their last gaze, 
 upon the portrait of the minister.
 
 THE SATYR'S HEAD 
 
 THE students had gathered around the 
 figure that the master was displaying. 
 The distorted features, the strained muscles, 
 the agonized tension of the ringers, were 
 exquisitely wrought in a composition of 
 tawny red, shading into bronze. After a 
 brief glance, a short, thick-set girl, with 
 coarse, black hair and a freckled face, re 
 turned to her work. 
 
 " It is a miniature copy of the life-size 
 original in the museum at Montevideo," ex 
 plained the master. " There had been a 
 battle between the Spaniards and the Indians. 
 Whichever side wins in these frequent out 
 breaks, the half-breeds the Gauchos suffer. 
 If one asks, 'Were many killed?' the reply 
 is, ' Oh, only a few Gauchos,' as though they 
 were vermin. I went to the battlefield after 
 the fight. This fellow lay gasping for water. 
 Luckily, the brook was at some distance, 
 and I worked fast. Look at the pose ! " he 
 added, with enthusiasm. He spoke as he
 
 154 TALES 
 
 had acted when a dying man's unslaked 
 agony was the price of his art. 
 
 Margaret Lane returned to her place at 
 last beside the girl with the coarse face and 
 coarser ways. 
 
 " How could you look upon the man's 
 suffering? " demanded the latter, and her 
 voice completed the impression of a hard, 
 assertive personality. 
 
 " Art is impersonal," answered the other 
 girl coldly, in her clear, full-toned enunci 
 ation. 
 
 "The artist cannot separate himself from 
 his art," said Martha Graves, vehemently; 
 " no one can rise above his own level." 
 
 " Have you been long in a position to 
 define art?" inquired Miss Lane, courteously. 
 
 Usually she sought no reason for her 
 instant attractions and antipathies, perhaps 
 even priding herself upon them as part and 
 proof of the artistic temperament. But her 
 dislike of Martha Graves dating from her 
 first glance at the latter's work she had 
 sedulously sought to justify. And ample 
 cause surely lay in her neighbor's shabby, 
 often untidy gown, her thick, repulsive 
 fingers, more suited to factory work than to 
 the delicate manipulation of clay; deeper 
 still in the fact that she had been working in 
 a Brockton shoe-shop ; and that a common
 
 THE SATYR'S HEAD 155 
 
 mill-hand should presume to enter a sculp 
 tor's studio was an insult to art to be justly 
 resented by one who had been born and bred 
 in the inner circles of Boston culture. 
 
 Perhaps it was because Margaret Lane's 
 example was infectious that Martha Graves' 
 easel, the solitary exception, was never sur 
 rounded by a group of fellow-students, and 
 assailed by the free, bold criticism that is in 
 itself so important an element of class work. 
 Not so much as a passing glance was ever 
 vouchsafed the efforts, presumptuous if not 
 so ludicrous, of the factory girl. But her 
 coarse-fibred, positive nature was proof 
 against the silent snubs and unspoken dis 
 like, even if she noticed them ; she only 
 worked with feverish energy, and was the 
 first to come and the last to leave the 
 studio. 
 
 No one knew how it had leaked out that 
 Martha Graves' art education was a hand to 
 mouth struggle, and that her sole means of 
 support were the savings from her meagre 
 wages in the shoe factory. Her sack was 
 threadbare, and her overshoes but a mockery 
 of protection against the snow and slush of 
 an unusually severe winter. She lived in a 
 hall bedroom, three flights back, in a narrow, 
 sunless street in a squalid part of the South 
 End, where she prepared her own scanty
 
 156 TALES 
 
 meals over a little ill-smelling kerosene 
 stove. There was a seamstress who had a 
 room on the same floor, who was occasion 
 ally employed by Mrs. Lane. Margaret 
 Lane held herself above listening to " servants' 
 tattle," but a few chance words concerning 
 the seamstress's neighbor may have fallen on 
 her unheeding ears. There was no one to 
 guess that Martha Graves' present life was 
 the bright and beautiful realization of the 
 dream of a lifetime. 
 
 For the past few weeks the atmosphere of 
 the studio had been rarefied with struggle. 
 A well-known art-patron had offered a schol 
 arship three years' study abroad to the 
 pupil who should produce the best piece of 
 work within a specified time. Margaret Lane's 
 choice of subject was the thorn-crowned head 
 of Christ. Martha Graves' was a satyr's head. 
 Both girls were working from photographs. 
 The present week closed the time allowed 
 for the work, when the various clay models 
 were to be cast in plaster and submitted to 
 the art committee. 
 
 In cold, impartial self-criticism, Margaret 
 Lane had measured her own work against 
 that of the others, and knew that there could 
 be no doubt of the issue. In another week her 
 name would be on every one's lips as the 
 winner of the most important art scholarship
 
 THE SATYR'S HEAD 157 
 
 of the year, and she drew a long breath of 
 rapture as the future arose before her. Three 
 years in Italy, consecrated to art, and with 
 the inspiring consciousness that her own 
 talent had paved the way ! A scornful look 
 crossed her face as she thought of Martha 
 Graves and her delusion. Almost, at that 
 moment of exaltation, she could have pitied 
 her! 
 
 Her neighbor had not been in the studio 
 to-day nor yesterday. Some impulse of auto 
 matic memory recalled the fact that Martha 
 Graves had been absent since the morning 
 they had exchanged impressions regarding the 
 Dying Gaucho. Led by a sudden impulse 
 that was perhaps mere aimless curiosity, 
 perhaps an undefined misgiving that was 
 strangely tangled with her " antipathy," 
 Margaret Lane withdrew the wrappings from 
 Martha Graves' work and stood transfixed. 
 
 Into the clay had been instilled the love 
 of mischief, allied to moral irresponsibility, 
 the working of evil ends without evil intent 
 or stain of sin, whose possibility had ceased 
 with the evolution of the higher life. It was 
 the satyr of heathen art, and not since the 
 days of heathen art had such a conception 
 found form ! 
 
 A few more touches, scarcely lacking even 
 to critical eyes, and then for Martha Graves
 
 158 TALES 
 
 the years in the atmosphere that would be 
 the breath of home to her exiled soul, and 
 which would unfold in her that which Mar 
 garet Lane knew her own utmost striving 
 could never attain. 
 
 In order to keep the clay moist and plastic, 
 at the close of the day's work it was wet 
 down, either by lightly sprinkling with the 
 hand or by spraying with an atomizer, and 
 covered with cotton and rubber swathings. 
 During Martha Graves' absence no friendly 
 hand had cared for her work, and the clay 
 was already hard and dry. 
 
 With practised eyes Margaret Lane saw 
 that if the satyr's head was not wet without 
 delay, another twenty-four hours would see it 
 ruined. All at once she recalled something 
 that the seamstress had said about Miss 
 Graves having a cold ; " threatened with 
 pneumonia" were not those the words? 
 
 Dizzy with a sudden emotion that she 
 could not, or would not, analyze, Margaret 
 Lane leaned heavily against the easel. Out 
 of the black mist came a flash that wellnigh 
 blinded and stunned her. It was generated 
 by the fusion of two thoughts. 
 
 Martha Graves could not leave her bed. 
 Twenty-four hours closed the contest. 
 
 With her hand clutching the atomizer, she 
 lived years in the next few seconds. For a
 
 THE SATYR'S HEAD 159 
 
 friend's sake, her haughty, self-sufficient 
 rectitude might have overcome. But how 
 could she sacrifice her own future for the sake 
 of the hated factory girl ! Only a moment 
 ago she had been cheated into a thought of 
 pity for Martha Graves' fatuity and her 
 face burned at her own vast presumption ! 
 The master was approaching. No other eye 
 must look upon this work. With tender, 
 loving reverence, she replaced the swathings 
 of the satyr's head. 
 
 The following day, as the light was waning, 
 the studio door was pushed rudely open and 
 a shabbily dressed girl entered, breathing 
 heavily and holding one hand to her chest. 
 Without noticing any one, Martha Graves 
 walked to her easel and withdrew carefully, 
 but in evident distracted haste, the coverings 
 from the clay. The girl by her side heard 
 the hoarse panting and knew that it was 
 not caused by " threatened pneumonia." A 
 student on the other side of the room was 
 " packing the board ; " that is, taking hand- 
 fuls of damp clay from the chest and flinging 
 them at his feet, into a mass that was to be 
 wrought into high relief. Margaret Lane 
 counted the thuds as though their enumera 
 tion was her chief concern in life. 
 
 " It is finished ! " sounded the coarse voice. 
 What fantasy was it that the utterance
 
 1 60 TALES 
 
 brought to mind the words, spoken long ago, 
 by one who hung upon the cross? Margaret 
 Lane nerved herself to glance at her neigh 
 bor's work. 
 
 The clay was dry and shrunken, and a fine 
 network of lines, like the " crackle " of por 
 celain, had taken the youth from the face, 
 while its expression of chaste and buoyant 
 sensuousness was curiously transformed to that 
 of bestial cunning by a jagged fissure, leering 
 from one eye to a corner of the mouth. 
 Envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness 
 mocked from the altered features, in the 
 distorted strength that has made deliberate 
 choice of evil. Irresponsibility was gone ; 
 the creature of the woods and fields was 
 replaced by man, after the revelation of his 
 higher nature, and with its claims ruthlessly 
 trampled upon. 
 
 " Your work is quite spoiled. What a 
 pity ! " said Miss Lane, with conventional 
 smoothness, and despised herself for the 
 petty hypocrisy. She worked steadily on. 
 Blind and dizzy with exultation, her very 
 being seemed to impart itself to those last 
 light touches on the impressionable clay. 
 
 Thud, thud ! 
 
 " It sounds like the first handful of earth 
 upon the coffin," said the strident voice of 
 the factory hand. " You've never heard it "
 
 THE SATYR'S HEAD 161 
 
 with a glance at her own black gown " or 
 maybe you'd be different. The doctor said I 
 mustn't leave the bed, but I'd have come if 
 I'd crawled on my hands and knees. I've 
 read how, in ancient Egypt, when a mother 
 killed her child, the lifeless body was strapped 
 to her. I don't wonder that those women went 
 mad." 
 
 With a kind of passionate tenderness, she 
 wrapped the coverings about her work> and 
 thrusting it under her arm, went out into the 
 cold and dark. 
 
 When the result of the competition was 
 made known, to every one's surprise the 
 scholarship was awarded, not to the favorite 
 student, but to a young man of whom no one 
 had thought in that connection. 
 
 It was the day of the crowning triumph of 
 Margaret Lane's life. The statue that she 
 had moulded in the clay which is the life, had 
 looked upon in the plaster which is the 
 death, was to be unveiled to-day in the 
 marble which is the resurrection. 
 
 The throng of people, distinguished visi 
 tors, famous artists and dignitaries of Church 
 and State, had come together to do honor 
 not to her, that thought held no share in 
 the sweet, glad consciousness of acknowl-
 
 1 62 TALES 
 
 edged power, but to her work. Speeches 
 had been made, poems read, and now loud 
 huzzas sounded as the statue gleamed in the 
 sunlight and a tall, calm-faced woman arose 
 from her place at the governor's side. 
 
 The twenty years that had passed had 
 brought to Margaret Lane the crowning glory 
 of a strong and beautiful womanhood. When 
 or how the Voice had spoken to her does not 
 matter. Enough that she had listened, and 
 her consecrated life witnessed the reality of 
 the new birth. 
 
 Love and sympathy, the priceless flowers 
 of the spiritual qualities that her hard, brill 
 iant girlhood had lacked, were fused into in 
 tellectual insight and the results of a masterly 
 technique; men spoke of her "genius; " but, 
 impartial as ever in her self-appraisal, Mar 
 garet Lane knew that hers was but the five 
 fold talent. Genius she had never seen but 
 once. 
 
 There was a door of her past life that her 
 present self never opened. In her studio was 
 a box containing a plaster cast sent back in 
 curt dismissal twenty years ago. 
 
 As she reseated herself in the carriage, a 
 woman, who, despite the commands and 
 buffetings of the police, had thrust and 
 elbowed her way through the surging crowd, 
 stood almost under the carriage wheels, and
 
 THE SATYR'S HEAD 163 
 
 the governor, leaning forward, spoke a kindly 
 word of warning. It was a woman with a hard, 
 mean face, whose features, set as though in 
 some strange arrested development, seemed 
 to offer no chance of appeal to a finer and 
 truer nature that some congenial atmosphere 
 might once have developed. A fetid odor 
 arose from her untidy clothes, as from long 
 contact with rank leather. For a second the 
 eyes of the two women met, and before those 
 of Margaret Lane was unveiled the slow, 
 hideous process of a soul's dissolution. 
 
 She had returned to her studio. Perhaps 
 she was impelled by some impulse she would 
 not question, perhaps it was her whim to see 
 from the critical height of to-day, the work 
 that represented the joyous anticipation and 
 bitter disappointment of her youth. With 
 haste strangely at variance with her usual 
 calm demeanor, she drew the nails from the 
 box containing the plaster cast, and looked 
 upon that which her hands had wrought 
 twenty years ago. 
 
 Had it been that the impression made by 
 Martha Graves' wonderful art upon a keenly 
 susceptible nature had influenced her own 
 work to the extent of unconscious imitation? 
 Was it that she had looked upon a monstrosity 
 in that mystic moment of supreme sensitive 
 ness, when her own conception was still in
 
 1 64 TALES 
 
 the womb, and it had come forth stamped 
 with a hideous birthmark? Or did this 
 abortion embody a truth deeper still, more 
 inscrutable? 
 
 Dimly, yet overpoweringly, the revelation 
 sank into her soul. 
 
 Upon the Christ nature within herself had 
 her hand been raised. Her sin looked at her 
 from the very face of Him who had become 
 her Master. For instead of the inner life 
 that had illumined and glorified the physical 
 beauty and commanding intellect, were 
 stamped envy, hatred, malice, and all un- 
 charitableness. 
 
 From the face of the Christ, the satyr 
 mocked and leered.
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 
 
 IT was the last day of the Loan Exhibition, 
 held in the " sloyd " room of the Indus 
 trial School. If the thinly clad, apathetic 
 throng, of varied nationality, may have 
 lingered longer ov^er circus posters and the 
 flaring announcements of the latest theatri 
 cal sensation than before the gigantic Bier- 
 stadt, the moonlight of De Haas, the sunset 
 of Turner, or even the " Burial of a Mummy," 
 which, depicted in all the richness and state- 
 liness of a far-off age, yet seemed to strike a 
 common chord of humanity, their lack of 
 appreciation was merely proof of the timeli 
 ness of the present exhibition. " To raise 
 the masses " being the popular cry, it was 
 desirable to begin at the right end, and be 
 sure that they learnt, betimes, to distinguish 
 between a Bouguereau and a Bridgman, with 
 which worthy intent, two ladies, members of 
 the committee, whose list comprised many 
 well-known names, had been in daily attend 
 ance.
 
 166 TALES 
 
 It was drawing near the hour for closing, 
 and the only visitor now was the old woman 
 employed to do the scrubbing about the 
 building, drawn thither, perhaps, less from 
 love of art than desire for warmth, for the 
 drizzling rain had changed to a driving storm 
 of alternate snow and sleet. 
 
 Old Betty was a familiar figure to visitors 
 at the school as she tugged her heavy pail of 
 water over the stairs or wrung out mopping- 
 rags with hands gnarled and distorted with 
 rheumatism and ceaseless toil, and chapped 
 and cracked with suds and exposure. The 
 tattered, dingy fragment of a shawl was tied 
 about her head, the fringe of which mingled 
 with the elf-locks of coarse, gray hair that 
 streamed about her wrinkled, haggard face. 
 Her calico skirts, pinned up over a short 
 patched petticoat, of long ago indeterminate 
 color, revealed the clumsy stockings and 
 heavy boots, which made additional misery 
 for the swollen feet. 
 
 Mrs. De Long, beautiful in her serene, 
 gracious matronhood, explained the pictures, 
 one by one, till they reached the gem of the 
 collection, in its magnificent frame of Venetian 
 scroll-work, before which the most indifferent 
 spectator had lingered. 
 
 It was the portrait of a young girl, with 
 shining masses of brown hair drawn to a
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 167 
 
 loose knot at the back of her head, and 
 frank, sunny eyes with a smile in their brown 
 depths that matched the curves of the lovely 
 mouth. It was a happy, fearless face, with 
 the look of one who feels that for her the 
 world holds all good things. Her gown, a 
 pale pink brocade, was thrown into relief by 
 dark crimson draperies ; one slender, white 
 hand drooped with the weight of a feather 
 fan. 
 
 The broad treatment, the delicate, harmo 
 nious coloring, the tender, poetic feeling, so 
 rich, yet restrained in suggestiveness, gave it 
 rank as the artist's best work. 
 
 Mrs. De Long would have passed with the 
 murmured words, " A portrait by Hunt," but 
 old Betty, wearied with her long day's work, 
 had sunk upon a chair near by. 
 
 " Stay and rest," said Mrs. De Long, laying 
 a gentle, kindly hand upon the old woman's 
 shoulder, as she lingered for a moment before 
 the picture, suddenly thrown into strong 
 relief by the electric light over the corner 
 grocery opposite. Then returning to her 
 friend, in the low-voiced talk that followed, 
 the old woman's presence was forgotten. 
 
 " You cannot think how startled I was to 
 see that picture there," began Mrs. De Long. 
 
 "It is of some one whom you know?" 
 queried Mrs. Morris.
 
 1 68 TALES 
 
 " It is the portrait of Elizabeth Gair," was 
 the reply. 
 
 " I wonder that others have not recognized 
 it," resumed Mrs. De Long after a lengthened 
 silence, which her friend instinctively forbore 
 to break. " But all the Gairs are dead ; 
 family friends, too, are dead or scattered, and 
 perhaps if any one did recognize the picture, 
 he deemed silence best. Elizabeth Gair was 
 the most beautiful creature I ever saw. The 
 portrait does not do her justice no art 
 could. It hung over the mantel-shelf in the 
 Gair drawing-room ; and then, as now, 
 seemed to absorb all the light in the room. 
 I have seen many a visitor pause on the 
 threshold, forgetful even of greeting, spell 
 bound by the vision before him. Poor Eliza 
 beth Gair ! " and the womanly voice faltered. 
 
 " I was much in the Gair house. Eliza 
 beth's sister Nellie was my most intimate 
 friend. We looked up to Elizabeth wjth the 
 enthusiasm of young girls for one a few years 
 their senior, who represents to them all that 
 is admirable in womanhood. Her party 
 gowns, her dainty shoes, the exquisite stock 
 ings of finest silk, the gloves that looked 
 almost too small even for hands that had 
 nothing to do but carry flowers or toy with a 
 fan were the objects of our wondering 
 adoration. We loved to touch, with reverent
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 169 
 
 finger-tips, the dainty shimmering things, as 
 they lay outspread upon the bed, in readiness 
 for the evening's festivity. She was so good 
 to us ! We would sit at her feet for hours, 
 listening to stories of the gay world in which 
 she bore her part so admirably. That bright 
 anticipation of the pictured face is only a feeble 
 representation of what beamed from hers. 
 Her beauty was the smallest part of her charm. 
 That lay in the graciousness, the lovableness 
 of her personality ; in its power of drawing 
 out the best that there was in every one, no- 
 matter how deeply, how apparently hope 
 lessly, it lay buried. Never have I known a 
 nature in which the rare magnetism of good 
 ness was so potent as in Elizabeth Gair's. 
 
 " I can scarcely speak of the end, even at 
 the distance of nearly thirty years. There 
 came a time when her name was on every 
 one's lips. But not not as it had been 
 spoken. 
 
 " No gossip could even surmise how it 
 happened. To have married Elizabeth Gair 
 would have seemed the realization of the 
 proudest dream of any man. 
 
 " Her picture was taken from the wall. 
 I supposed, till to-day, that it was destroyed. 
 Her father forbade her name to be mentioned 
 in his presence. Nellie, nearly heart-broken, 
 was sent away to school. Contrary to all the
 
 1 70 TALES 
 
 conflicting stories, Elizabeth did not leave 
 her father's house. A room was fitted up for 
 her in the upper story, where, with locked 
 doors and shut and shuttered windows, the 
 only glimpse of the sky a narrow rift at the 
 top, Elizabeth Gair lived for five long years, 
 without speech with any one, allowed only 
 her books and embroidery for companion 
 ship. 
 
 "Nellie passed her vacations either at 
 school or with an aunt whose home was in 
 a distant city. It was during one of these 
 visits that her engagement took place. An 
 early marriage was advisable, for the girl 
 was practically without a home. Family 
 pride, however, dictated that the marriage 
 should take place from her father's house. 
 
 " Nellie's tears and pleadings to see her 
 sister again for the last time finally pre 
 vailed. Just before the bridal party set out 
 for the church, Elizabeth was conducted to 
 the drawing-room. Did the sight of the 
 beautiful apartment, whose chief ornament 
 had once hung in that blank space over the 
 mantel-shelf; the meeting with the little sister, 
 grown to womanhood in the five years' blank 
 of her own existence ; the thought that she 
 had forfeited the right to stand by Nellie's 
 side, the loving, beloved elder sister, in this, 
 the supreme hour of the girl's life, did it
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 171 
 
 all bring home to Elizabeth, as never before, 
 what had been and what was? 
 
 " Nellie never told me what passed between 
 them at that interview. 
 
 " Soon after the wedding, the announce 
 ment of Elizabeth Gair's death appeared in 
 the daily papers. It may have been true. 
 Ah, how often I have prayed that it was true ! 
 The house was closed and Mr. and Mrs. Gair 
 went abroad ; within a year both were dead. 
 Nellie's death had preceded theirs; the 
 property went to a distant cousin and the 
 household furnishings were scattered far and 
 wide. 
 
 " I don't like to speak of what I heard. 
 Probably there was not a word of truth in 
 it. Elizabeth Gair was dead. But in one of 
 those curious, roundabout ways in which 
 tidings that affect us most deeply reach us in 
 indifferent speech, I heard mention of a ball 
 given annually by a notorious woman for the 
 leaders of the demi-monde, and frequented 
 by the best men so called in town. 
 On one of these occasions, the gayest of the 
 gay, a woman with the light of utter reckless 
 ness in her beautiful eyes, outdoing all the 
 others in her abandonment of every good 
 and womanly impulse, was she who had once 
 been I cannot speak the name in such con 
 nection, even now. Never do I see a painted
 
 i;2 TALES 
 
 creature but that my heart beats high. Any 
 where, anyhow, I should know her ; no matter 
 how changed by time or circumstances, a 
 voice would whisper, ' It is she,' and I should 
 hear its accents, however low and indistinct. 
 
 " Never were there gifts so utterly wasted ; 
 never was there a life so wrecked beyond re 
 demption as Elizabeth Gair's ! 
 
 " I don't know why I have told you the 
 story," added Mrs. De Long, hurriedly. " It 
 is the first time it has crossed my lips. But 
 I felt impelled to speak. Perhaps it was the 
 influence of the twilight, the storm, or the un 
 expected sight of that picture, that has made 
 me feel so uneasy, so distraught." 
 
 Whatever the undercurrent of their 
 thoughts, when the two ladies spoke again it 
 was upon indifferent subjects ; of the Exhi 
 bition, of matters of social interest, and, 
 presently, of church topics, " chapters " 
 and " missions " and " board meetings." The 
 old woman, lulled perhaps by the gentle 
 murmur of their voices and by the grateful 
 warmth of the room, with head bowed upon 
 the " sloyd " bench before her, had appar 
 ently fallen asleep. 
 
 A name was mentioned that of the 
 rector. 
 
 " They say he will leave us, if he receives 
 the call," said Mrs. De Long. " Besides be-
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 173 
 
 ing the most influential church in the diocese, 
 it is the open road to the bishopric." 
 
 " Personal ambition could not influence 
 Mr. Bache," responded Mrs. Morris, with 
 gentle reproach. " But if he should accept, 
 what a loss he would be to us ! How we 
 should miss that ineffable smile, the pressure 
 of the beautiful white hands, that look out of 
 the soulful eyes that says so much without 
 utterance ! " 
 
 " Rev. Francis Bache is wise in confining 
 his intercourse with the feminine contingent 
 of his pastoral charge to that dumb eloquence 
 which, like Goethe's definition of a Marchen, 
 may mean everything, or nothing," answered 
 Mrs. De Long, dryly. 
 
 " My dear," expostulated Mrs. Morris, " I 
 am sure you admire and reverence our rector 
 as much as any one are as deeply in spirit 
 ual sympathy with his exalted ideals. You 
 keep Lent most rigorously, go to all the early 
 services, and never miss attendance on Sun 
 days and feast days." 
 
 " I go to his church," responded Mrs. De 
 Long, in clear, hard tones, " because his ser 
 mons are pleasing to the intellect. I enjoy 
 his vivid word-pictures and the faculty he 
 has of seeming to single me out from all 
 the congregation ; and because, toward that 
 peculiar union of the aesthetic and the emo-
 
 174 TALES 
 
 tional in which lies his greatest power, I con 
 fess to being in the mental attitude of the 
 small boy convicted over a dime novel : ' I 
 like to have my blood curdled ! ' But when," 
 continued Mrs. De Long, in another tone, 
 " in those moments of soul-hunger that come 
 to us all, I have cried out for bread, he has 
 given me but a stone. What do I care that 
 it is a beautiful, glittering stone, that the 
 world calls a gem ! " 
 
 "You have known him a long while?" 
 queried Mrs. Morris, with interest. 
 
 " I knew him before he entered the pulpit; 
 4 Francis Bache turn minister ! ' was the ex 
 clamation. That the gay young fellow, the 
 leader in every social frolic, should renounce 
 the world was as sudden and miraculous a 
 conversion as St. Paul's. I thought so, too, 
 then. I have changed my opinion since. 
 Ambition was the key-note of Francis Bache's 
 character then, as now. The personal mag 
 netism that drew towards him so irresistibly 
 maid and matron, the charm with which he 
 invested the lightest word, making you feel 
 that it was addressed to you alone, although 
 not precisely as a miserable sinner, the 
 exquisite modulation of tone that made him 
 the most admirable Claude Melnotte the 
 amateur stage has ever seen, were held even 
 then as the tools with which, presently, he
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 175 
 
 would build the ladder to eminence. Mean 
 while, that union of the emotional and aes 
 thetic, which with him took the place of a 
 coarser passion, should have its fling, never 
 forgetting that one false step would ruin the 
 whole lofty scheme. Why has he never 
 married? is often asked. Because of per 
 sonal aggrandizement. Only a celibate priest 
 may attain eminence. Even in appearance 
 he is unchanged. The slight, graceful figure, 
 the smooth face, the burning dark eyes, 
 are the same now that they were thirty years 
 ago." 
 
 The janitor knocked at the door presently. 
 It was the hour for closing the building. The 
 ladies' carriage was waiting. " The old 
 woman is still there," hesitated Mrs. Morris. 
 
 " Let the poor creature remain ; she can 
 do no harm," returned Mrs. De Long, shiv 
 ering as she drew her furred wraps about her. 
 " She is familiar with the building, and the 
 janitor's door will be unlocked." 
 
 The room was left to the darkness save 
 where the electric light focused its dazzling 
 radiance and to the old woman. 
 
 She raised her head at last, and gazed at 
 the portrait with an agony that could not 
 find expression in tears ; eyes such as hers 
 lose their power of weeping. Her hands 
 were outstretched, as in pity and supplication.
 
 1 76 TALES 
 
 " I've heard your story, dear," she whis 
 pered, " and every word fell on my heart. 
 There was no one in all the world to hold out 
 a hand to you, not even when you went to the 
 window and looked up at the stars shining in 
 the chink of sky they had left you, and cried 
 in your heart, for your lips had lost their 
 power of prayer, ' Help me ! ' 
 
 " You thought He did not hear, for no help 
 came. There was no way out. Friends, 
 father, mother, the little sister you loved so 
 dearly, even He to whom you had once knelt 
 
 all had forgotten you. 
 
 " Oh, to think of that night ! No hour 
 since then stands out in the very blackness 
 of darkness as that last hour in the drawing- 
 room ! 
 
 " For once they have forgotten you. The 
 door is unlocked ! Hush ! Down the back 
 stairs hark, somebody is coming quick 
 
 the area door 
 
 " What a long breath you drew when you 
 stood in the open air free ! 
 
 " What creatures are those clutching at you 
 from out the darkness ! Brush them away 
 fight them don't be dragged back to prison 
 
 they are gone ! 
 
 " You stood upon the pavement home 
 less. Ah, homeless ! 
 
 " Then then it was you who forgot them
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 177 
 
 father, mother, Nellie even Him beyond 
 whose redemption you thought you had flung 
 yourself. 
 
 " There, dear, don't cry. I'm sorry for 
 you. I'll help you. Come home with me. 
 Begin again. Think of your father he 
 doesn't care? Your mother ! How will you 
 meet Nellie? 
 
 " Don't stand there shivering in that thin 
 gown. It's a beautiful gown, but it cost you 
 what you may never have again. You're not 
 the first, child, I've brought home out of the 
 cold and wet, and given a good hot cup of tea 
 and made comfortable in a warm room, till 
 by and by the despair wasn't quite so deep. 
 You knew somebody cared. 
 
 " Ah, do come, dear. You shall stay with 
 me till you get work. 
 
 "The tobacco factory, was it? Yes, my 
 child, I know what that means. The air is 
 suffocating; the dust gives one a racking 
 cough, and the finger-tips are sore and bleed 
 ing. It was the worst of trades, too, for such 
 as you, so young and pretty ! Fine ladies 
 may understand life's pretty pictures. What 
 do they know of its realities? With just one 
 word you could change it all. Why not? 
 Nobody cared. 
 
 " But somebody does care. By and by the 
 other pictures will fade away and the great
 
 i/8 TALES 
 
 white light will shine upon one face and 
 form 
 
 "You'll come home with me? That's 
 right." 
 
 The old woman's fingers grasped the sharp, 
 pointed " sloyd " knife that lay upon the 
 bench ; pushing the chair beneath the pict 
 ure, slowly and carefully she began cutting 
 the canvas from the frame. 
 
 " It is such a bitter night for this bare neck 
 and those thin shoes how the icy pave 
 ment must cut your feet ! 
 
 "Take my shawl no, no, it does not 
 matter about me. I've lived through many 
 a night of biting cold, when nobody wanted 
 any scrubbing done. I was too old and stiff 
 for anything else, and I could not beg. 
 
 " Let me fasten the shawl for you There, 
 dear, so come ! " 
 
 Rev. Francis Bache was seated at his study 
 table, upon which lay the letter containing 
 the formal call to the great city church. 
 Little as he was accustomed to idleness, for 
 hours he had sat thus, revelling not more in 
 the realization of his dreams of the past and 
 in visions of the future, than in the mere sense 
 of dominant mental power that intoxication 
 of the intellect compared to which sensual
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 179 
 
 enjoyments are as a child's pleasure in a 
 toy. 
 
 There was a knock at the door. " A man, 
 on some urgent errand, wished to see the 
 rector," said the maid. It was the janitor of 
 the Industrial School. From his confused 
 and excited statement, it appeared that after 
 attending to the furnaces for the night, he 
 had made his customary round of the build 
 ing. On reaching the " sloyd " room, he 
 beheld the portrait by Hunt, with the canvas 
 cut from the frame. 
 
 Mr. Bache, as he drew on his overcoat, 
 asked the names of the ladies who had been 
 in charge of the exhibition during the day. 
 
 Mrs. De Long, aghast at the rector's tidings, 
 could give no clue to the perpetrator of the 
 outrage. She was certain that she and Mrs. 
 Morris were the last persons in the room, and 
 that the janitor had locked the door of the 
 building after them. " Was she sure of her 
 statement? Might not some one have crept 
 in unobserved in the twilight? " Mrs. De 
 Long repeated, reiterated, and hesitated. Mr. 
 Bache pressed the question. 
 
 " The old woman who did the scrubbing 
 about the building had strayed into the room 
 at the last hour" 
 
 She got no further ; the next minute Mr. 
 Bache and the janitor were on the pavement,
 
 i8o TALES 
 
 facing the quarter where old Betty lived. 
 There, even in the storm and at the late 
 hour, women, with shawls drawn over their 
 heads, were loitering along the muddy side 
 walk, and men and half-grown boys were 
 smoking and talking in loud voices and ribald 
 language on the street corners. 
 
 They paused before a miserable tene 
 ment-house. The rector lifted the latch of 
 the boltless, lockless door, and strode ahead 
 through an entry in which the tracks of many 
 feet had converted the mud into a slime with 
 which the very walls seemed to reek. A 
 heavy, cold moisture, like that of an under 
 ground cave, filled the air, penetrating even 
 through Mr. Bache's luxurious overcoat. 
 Matches were necessary to light the way up 
 three flights of narrow, winding stairs ; then, 
 following an entry that plunged into the 
 darkness on the left, the two men reached 
 the room where old Betty lived. 
 
 There was no response to the rector's re 
 peated knock, and he pushed the door gently 
 open. The janitor, wondering and impatient, 
 despite his profound reverence, would have 
 crowded near, but Mr. Bache motioned him 
 back. 
 
 " Go," he whispered imperiously, and 
 stood alone upon the threshold. 
 
 Before him was a fireless room, with the
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 181 
 
 ceiling just high enough to escape the law's 
 enactments ; patches and shreds of discolored 
 paper hung from the dingy walls ; a bed, 
 whose outlines the scanty coverlids could not 
 soften ; a rusty stove, with a tea-pot and 
 cracked tea-cup upon it ; a rickety table, and 
 two battered wooden chairs, comprised the 
 furniture. 
 
 Opposite, upon the mantel-shelf, was the 
 object that had riveted the rector's gaze, 
 the portrait by Hunt. Again, the picture 
 filled the room. 
 
 Before it crouched old Betty, talking in dis 
 jointed phrases, while her ringers plucked 
 aimlessly at the frozen folds of her gown. 
 
 " She called you ' a painted creature,' and 
 left you to the cold and dark. But One who 
 was writing on the ground whispered, 'Never 
 are there gifts so utterly wasted but that, with 
 my help, they may still be used in my ser 
 vice ; never was there a life that was wrecked 
 beyond my redemption.' 
 
 " It's been such a terrible dream. 
 But it's over now. How did it begin? I re 
 member when they took the portrait from 
 the wall. 
 
 " There, Nellie dear, don't cry. You have 
 your own life to live, child, and I must not be 
 a part of it, even in memory. You must not 
 let the shadow of my life fall upon yours.
 
 1 82 TALES 
 
 You have another to live for. Hark ! he is 
 calling you loosen your arms, dear 
 
 " No, no, it's all a dream 
 
 "There is the portrait, just as it always 
 was 
 
 " Oh, how the sight of that blank wall 
 pierced my heart ! Why did they take the 
 picture away ? I wish I could get that dream 
 out of my head. 
 
 "Who brought the picture back? 
 
 " I wish Francis would come. 
 
 " I wonder what makes me so tired 
 to-night ? Why doesn't Francis 
 come ! 
 
 " Francis ! I knew you would come. I 
 have waited so long for you, dear. 
 Let me look at you so so. 
 
 "It is good to rest my head once 
 more upon your shoulder ! " 
 
 " Do you remember that evening we met, 
 Francis? I wore the pink gown the one 
 in the picture and you said I was 
 ' adorable.' It was when we stood by the 
 door after the waltz and you were 
 fanning me. I always liked that feather fan, 
 because your hand had held it. 
 
 " I laughed at you, then, so many had 
 called me ' adorable.' But that night I lay 
 awake and said the word over and over to 
 myself. It was a new word one you had
 
 THE PORTRAIT BY HUNT 183 
 
 coined never spoken to another. Bend 
 your head I want to whisper. Tell me 
 again, I am adorable ! 
 
 "Francis you who are so true you 
 will tell me the truth. 
 
 ' ' Who brought the picture back ? ' ' 
 
 "Why do you turn away 
 your face? 
 
 "Was it I I who bore it all the 
 long, hard way, back back to its place 
 in my father's mansion?" 
 
 It was long after midnight when Mr. Bache 
 sat again at his study table. For years after, 
 his people spoke of that last sermon. The 
 spare, refined gestures, the eloquent pauses, 
 the peculiar directness with which he seemed 
 to address each individual in the great congre 
 gation with all those charms they were famil 
 iar. But there was something to-day behind 
 voice and manner that they felt for the first 
 time something which seemed to answer an 
 unvoiced cry from their inmost natures. 
 
 Great was the surprise when it was known 
 that Mr. Bache had declined the call he had 
 received ; greater still when it was heard that 
 he had left the pulpit forever and would 
 merge his individuality in that of a brother 
 hood whose work lay in the slums of a dis 
 tant city.
 
 1 84 TALES 
 
 " It was his noble spirit of self-sacrifice," 
 said Mrs. Morris. 
 
 " Something lay behind it," thought Mrs. 
 De Long, and dwelt again on those burning 
 words, familiar, yet elusive, with which that 
 last wonderful sermon had closed. 
 
 "Even in that saddest failure, which the 
 world mocks by calling success, never are 
 there gifts so utterly wasted but that, with 
 His help, they may still be used in His ser 
 vice ; never was there a life that was wrecked 
 beyond His redemption ! "
 
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 OF ONE THOUSAND COPIES PRINTED DURING 
 OCTOBER 1896 BY THE ROCKWELL AND 
 CHURCHILL PRESS OF BOSTON
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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